The Lord Bishop of Norwich

Graham Richard, Lord Bishop of Norwich—Was (in the usual manner) introduced between the Lord Bishop of London and the Lord Bishop of Newcastle.

Anti-Semitism

Lord Clarke of Hampstead: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What action is being taken to combat anti-Semitism in the United Kingdom.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, the Government have in recent years strengthened both the legal framework against race discrimination and the criminal penalties for offences such as incitement to racial hatred and for racially or religiously aggravated assault and criminal damage. Police forces continue to be alert to crimes being committed against members of the Jewish community and take appropriate steps to safeguard people and property. Furthermore, we support and are encouraging the growing amount of dialogue that is taking place between communities, including faith communities, in the United Kingdom.

Lord Clarke of Hampstead: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that positive Answer. Does she agree that we are witnessing the return of the oldest hatred? Figures recently released by the Community Security Trust speak for themselves. In 2003, there was a 15 per cent rise in anti-Semitic assaults; 104 synagogues have been vandalised in just over three years; and the damage and desecration of Jewish property in 2003 alone rose by 31 per cent.
	Does my noble friend agree that this country has a long history of combating anti-Semitism, but that this recent resurgence has been coupled with claims that the Jewish community is suffering as a result of its support for and affiliation with the state of Israel? Does my noble friend further agree that the conviction of racially and religiously aggravated offences we have witnessed should not be conditional upon people of the Jewish religion having to denounce the state of Israel? What is being done about that?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I totally agree with my noble friend. Expressions of hatred of Jewish people, let alone attacks on persons and property, are simply unacceptable. Criticisms of the policies of a foreign government cannot be used to justify such behaviour.

Lord Dholakia: My Lords, does the Minister consider that the provisions relating to the incitement of racial and religious hatred are adequate? How many cases have been brought before the court involving those who have perpetrated racially and religiously aggravated crimes?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, we now have appropriate legislation to deal with these issues. There have been increasing figures. The CPS figures for racist incidents show that in relation to the period 2001–02, there were 5,764 charges and 3,597 of those were prosecuted. Those are the most recent figures we have.
	The figure for the total number of anti-Semitic incidents in the United Kingdom for 2003 is 375; that is 25 more than last year. It is a worrying figure, but we have some good examples of prosecutions which are robust and successful. The most important was that for which a period of nine years' imprisonment followed. We are therefore giving the clearest signal possible that this behaviour is wholly and totally unacceptable.

Lord Haskel: My Lords, does the Minister agree that it is important to understand the reasoning behind the numbers? Is she aware that the Institute for Jewish Policy Research—I declare an interest as its president—has been allowed by the Metropolitan Police to have access to their records so that a proper study can be made of the nature of these incidents, their location, social context and motivation? Is it not important to understand those aspects so that we can then understand more fully the exact nature of anti-Semitism and racial hatred in this country?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, as my noble friend says, it is very important for us to understand the basis of such prejudice and dreadful behaviour, because it is only by understanding it that we might be able to craft something that will work to stop it.

The Lord Bishop of Oxford: My Lords, as the noble Baroness is well aware, there is much discussion about the possible interconnection between the policies of the state of Israel and the rise of anti-Semitism. Will she encourage other organisations to follow the good example of the Government and remind people that, however critical they might be of this Israeli Government—and some of the most critical voices come from Israel itself—that state has legitimate security needs which need to be publicly recognised?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, we have made that plain and it would be right to underscore it. All the efforts that are being undertaken by ordinary men and women who come together to try to change the culture are equally important. I commend to the House the efforts being made by the Women's Interface Network. It was started by Lady Levy and brings women together from across the board to discuss, share and develop a better understanding that we should all try to generate.

Lord Avebury: My Lords, as the Government acknowledge that incitement to religious hatred is a growing evil and that actual offences motivated by religious hatred are increasing, why have not the Government found time to debate the report of the Select Committee on Religious Offences?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, all debates have to go through the usual channels to find space. I know that the noble Lord may wish that the Government had a greater say over the usual channels. We may wish for that as well, but we simply do not have it.

Lord Clinton-Davis: My Lords, despite the comments of my noble friend, does she agree that anti-Semitism and other racial crimes have increased, but should not have done so? The whole House will understand her unconditional repudiation of all racial crime. In my view, that is what we should stand for.

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I agree with my noble friend. There has been a rise in racially motivated crimes—both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. I condemn both.

Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the French Minister for education has just launched a pamphlet that gives guidance for French schools to deal with and counter the worrying rise in anti-Semitic incidents there? If the Government are not already doing so, would they consider giving such guidance to schools in this country?

Baroness Scotland of Asthal: My Lords, I was not aware that the French Minister of education was doing that. I can reassure my noble friend that the Department for Education and Skills is fully supportive of all that we do and tries to ensure that children and people in education are aware of our firm views on appropriate behaviour and comments; and that they form an important part of citizenship and other educational programmes in our schools.

Northern Ireland Legislative Assembly: Members' Salaries

Lord Smith of Clifton: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	Whether they intend to continue to pay the salaries of Members of the Northern Ireland Legislative Assembly and those of their support staff after 9th April 2004 if by that date the Assembly has not been convened.

Baroness Amos: My Lords, the question of the salaries and allowances paid to Members of the Northern Ireland Legislative Assembly and to parties is being kept under review.

Lord Smith of Clifton: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that brief Answer. Is she aware that in the 19 months from the suspension in October 2002, until Good Friday this year, the Assembly will have cost the taxpayer just under £10 million? Your Lordships' Chamber is reckoned to be the cheapest legislature in the western world and Stormont is the most expensive, because it has not done a stroke of work since 2002. When will the Government call a halt to that pointless expenditure? Stopping the pay of MLAs might just spur them at last to enter into meaningful negotiations. Would not Good Friday be an appropriate day to start?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Clifton, is aware of the justification that we have given for the payment of MLA salaries and allowances, as well as party allowances, following the election. MLAs carry out constituency duties and have done so since the elections in November 2003. I do not consider it right to keep people engaged in politics without an income and, as the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Clifton, is aware, some are participating in the review.

Lord Glentoran: My Lords, does the Lord President agree that this situation has occurred because of Sinn Fein's continual refusal to give up terrorism? Furthermore, does she agree that the privileges granted to Sinn Fein by special resolution of another place should also be withdrawn? She may be aware that only today, or perhaps yesterday, Sinn Fein spent £25,000 in America taking a full-page advertisement decrying the PSNI.

Baroness Amos: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, knows that I have said many times from this Dispatch Box that we want to see an end to all paramilitary activity. As part of the review process, since the Tohill incident, focus has been placed on the need to end paramilitary activity and the Government are working towards that. We want to see the peace process in Northern Ireland enshrined and the people of Northern Ireland want to see that as well. The Taoiseach and my right honourable friend the Prime Minister will try to reinvigorate the process in their meetings next week and we should give them every support.

Earl Ferrers: My Lords, would the Leader of the House be good enough to have another shot at answering the Question that was put to her? Do the Government intend to continue to pay the salaries of Members from 9 April, which is in about four weeks' time? As I understood it, the noble Baroness said that the matter was continuously under review, but will salaries continue to be paid or not?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, the fact that I said that the process is under review means that a decision on stopping payments has not been made. The payments will continue and the process will be reviewed.

Lord Elton: My Lords, does the noble Baroness have a view on the question asked by my noble friend Lord Glentoran concerning the advertisement placed in the American press?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, that is a matter for Sinn Fein.

Lord Shutt of Greetland: My Lords, will the noble Baroness indicate whether she considers satisfactory the non-activity of the Assembly and the fact that this House and the other place spent three-and-a-half hours in total scrutinising the budget for the entirety of Northern Ireland? If direct rule continues for much longer, will there be some other way in which such scrutiny can be properly achieved?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, noble Lords will know that I am as concerned as they are that we are having to deal with some complicated and quite technical information in a Grand Committee. We would all like to see devolution restored as quickly as possible and we have made that absolutely clear. That is what we are working towards.
	One issue that we discussed in this House recently was the importance of support to the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the fact that, for example, we want to see Sinn Fein included on the Policing Board in Northern Ireland. Reference has been made to the advertisement in the United States. I deeply regret that but it is a matter for Sinn Fein. However, we all feel that Sinn Fein's role—for example, on the Policing Board—would take the peace process much further forward. We would like to see devolution restored and that is what we are working for.

Viscount Brookeborough: My Lords, does the Lord President agree that, in the context of the Question, the newspaper advertisement to which reference has been made is not entirely a matter for Sinn Fein? Basically, the Question concerns how long the Assembly will remain suspended, and Sinn Fein's acceptance of the policing of Northern Ireland has a direct bearing on that. Therefore, the two issues are interlinked. We should not say that this matter is entirely for Sinn Fein; it is for this Government, the Irish Government and, at this moment, this House.

Baroness Amos: My Lords, the use of its money for the placing of advertisements in the United States is a matter for Sinn Fein. The policy implications of that and the fact that we, the Irish Government and others have worked tirelessly to bring all parties to the table is of course a matter for this House and for all of us. But there is a distinction between those two issues. I was asked specifically about the amount of money spent on an advertisement. That is not a matter for the British Government, but the policy implications arising from that and from the work that we are doing to restore devolution and to bring peace to Northern Ireland are, of course, matters of great concern to this Government, this House and the Irish Government.

Baroness Park of Monmouth: My Lords, have the Government taken, or do they intend to take, any steps to point out publicly in America that, when the PSNI was set up, Gerry Adams said that Sinn Fein would treat anyone who joined it, including the young Catholics whom everyone hoped would join, as it had always treated the police—that is, they would be killed? The first young graduate was, indeed, shot at. What steps are the Government taking to set these matters right publicly in the United States, as opposed to talking behind the scenes, very properly, with government?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, the noble Baroness may be aware that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland is in the United States at this very moment. He will be engaging in talks on these matters not only with US Government representatives but with others. In relation to employment within the Police Service of Northern Ireland, we have worked very hard with regard to 50:50 recruitment and we have seen the number of Catholics recruited increase from 8 to 14 per cent. There was some controversy in this House surrounding the renewal of that order. However, we remain committed to trying to bring about a more integrated service in Northern Ireland because we need a police force that reflects the community that it serves.

Equal Pay

Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare an interest. My union, Amicus, is currently engaged in a campaign on the whole issue of women's pay.
	The Question was as follows:
	To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to encourage employers to put equal pay audits into operation to counter any gender gap in pay in certain industries.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, we are working with the Equal Opportunities Commission, Opportunity Now, trade unions and employers to meet our target of 35 per cent of large organisations completing pay reviews by 2006. We have provided funding for the EOC to develop equal pay toolkits for both large and small employers and funding for trade unions to train representatives in equal pay issues. We are also supporting the EOC's sectoral approach to promoting pay reviews.

Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, I am grateful for that response, but is the Minister aware that in financial services, for example, the pay gender gap is as large as 43 per cent? I am very grateful to the Government for the encouragement that they have given and for the work that is done with the EOC. But can we perhaps move a little more towards compulsion as encouragement does not seem to be working as well as it might?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I acknowledge the sterling work which my noble friend carries out on these issues. Typically, she has identified one sectoral area of greatest concern—that of financial services, where the gap between men's pay and women's pay is by far the largest of any sector. That is why, as a government, we are addressing that matter and indicating that other sectors are doing far better and that financial services need to improve in this respect.

Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords, in responding to the Question, the Minister mentioned the Equal Pay Task Force and the work that it is doing. But will he acknowledge that the EOC's recent report stated that 54 per cent of large and 67 per cent of medium-sized employers said that they had no intention whatever of conducting such equal pay reviews? Equal pay for work of equal value has been part of our law for at least 30 years and perhaps longer. Is it not time that the Government now began to use compulsion rather than just encouragement to ensure equal pay for work of equal value?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, the Government are setting the best example. It will be recognised that in the Civil Service we have made very substantial progress indeed with regard to equal pay, although we have not achieved the full objectives that we have addressed. The noble Baroness is right. She will recognise that by next year a substantial section of major employers will have completed the pay reviews. They are the lead organisations on these issues and we expect them to make real progress. Having done that, it will then be necessary to address ourselves more to the problems of others and particularly to smaller businesses.

Baroness O'Cathain: My Lords, in the Minister's first reply he mentioned that the Government are producing toolkits for equal pay. Are those toolkits readily available? Will they be extended to the private sector, so that, in turn, that sector can put a spanner in the works to stop the leapfrogging of pay, which is started by high pay rises in the public sector?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, the toolkits are widely available. I hope that the response of industry will not be to put a spanner in the works. I believe that industry will look at certain aspects of the equal pay issue. Perhaps I can give one example of the use of the toolkit. Merely shortening the band on which promotion is effected can often advantage women, as very long bands require them to serve for many years before they reach the same top point to which men graduate more readily because they have been in employment longer. Such an aspect of the toolkits, which perhaps is not widely known, will be of advantage to private industry. I believe that industry will consider that to be a progressive position that it can take up without undue cost.

Lord Lamont of Lerwick: My Lords, do the Government support the directive that is being prepared by Commissioner Diamantopoulos on gender equality, which, if commentators are accurate, will ensure that women pay higher insurance rates than at present in the name of equality and receive lower annuity rates, again in the name of equality?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, we believe that the commissioner may marginally have misdirected himself as regards the insurance industry. We seek to emphasise the obvious fact that insurance is about risk and risk with regard to life expectancy differs according to gender.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford: My Lords, the Minister will know that in 2001 the Bett report identified in the academic sector a systematic discrepancy of 20 per cent between male and female pay. Are there any indications that the move towards locally negotiated pay will widen or narrow those discrepancies?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, it came as a surprise to the wider public that progress in academic circles was not as rapid as had been expected and that the same level of discrimination against women academics was occurring as in other areas of pay. On local versus national, provided that local negotiators follow the concepts that we seek to advance, and which are represented by the way in which we develop Civil Service pay, there is no reason, whether the negotiations are local or national, why women should not make the proper advance.

Afghanistan: Women's Healthcare

Baroness Rawlings: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare an interest as an unpaid patron of the Afghan Mother and Child Healthcare Clinic in the Panshir valley.
	The Question was as follows:
	To ask Her Majesty's Government what action they are taking to improve the healthcare provision for women living in rural areas in Afghanistan.

Baroness Amos: My Lords, we provided 19 per cent of the EC's £282 million Afghanistan package for 2003–04 (£17.5 million is for health) and £34 million through the World Bank. The EU and World Bank fund basic healthcare through non-government organisations. The UK also funds UNICEF which supports emergency obstetric care services, including in rural areas, and is refurbishing many maternity hospitals in major cities. Our bilateral programme to Afghanistan focuses on government capacity building and income generation.

Baroness Rawlings: My Lords, I thank the Leader of the House for her Answer. Is she aware that Afghanistan has one of the world's highest rates of maternal mortality, with over 50 per cent of deaths among expectant mothers and one rural woman dying every 20 minutes? What assessment has DfID carried out regarding female access to basic healthcare facilities in rural Afghanistan—not in the cities of which she spoke? With the welcome increase in the aid budget announced today, what support is DfID planning to provide for the education and training of rural midwives, thus reaching women living in the countryside who are banned from leaving their homes?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, the noble Baroness is quite right with respect to the high levels of maternity and infant mortality in Afghanistan. DfID has not carried out any assessment. The most recent assessment is part of the WHO Afghanistan appeal, a copy of which I shall be happy to send to the noble Baroness. We have contributed to the Afghanistan ministry of health, which has prepared an interim health strategy.
	On the issue of funding, our funding is targeted on capacity building and working at a strategic level with the Afghan interim administration. On health, the World Bank, USAID and the European Union are the main funders. They provide those funds through a mechanism pioneered in Cambodia, where the Government are contracting NGOs to provide services across Afghanistan, particularly in rural areas.

Baroness Northover: My Lords, can the Minister provide me with a more precise Answer to a question that I asked last Wednesday about whether NATO has agreed a timetable for the expansion of the number of troops to be deployed in Afghanistan, given that last Thursday there was a NATO meeting, and given that everyone agrees that, unless there is improved security, we shall not improve the welfare of Afghan citizens? Can she also tell the House what proportion of the money that the Chancellor announced today for Afghanistan, Iraq, and the fight against terrorism will go to Afghanistan?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, I shall have to write to the noble Baroness on the timetable and the number of troops. I believe that last week I said that there is a planned expansion of the provincial reconstruction team in Afghanistan and, as part of that, we are also looking at whether US troops can be focused in the south-east of the country where there is a particular concern about the re-emergence of the Taliban. What that will mean in terms of the deployment of troop numbers is still being worked out. I shall also write to the noble Baroness on the spread of money between the three areas that she mentioned.

Lord Tomlinson: My Lords, can my noble friend confirm that she heard the same words as I did from the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, which was a welcome for the announcement of increased aid? Is she as confused as I am about exactly where the Conservative Party's public expenditure plans now stand?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, my noble friend is quite right. The noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, welcomed the increased aid to Afghanistan. We all welcome that. On the public expenditure plans of the party opposite, there is absolutely no doubt that they are in some confusion. Perhaps noble Lords opposite will enlighten us at some future date.

Lord Elton: My Lords, following the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, does the Leader of the House see the urgency for an extension of the military intervention in Afghanistan linked to the need to get the elections going? At present, I understand that very small numbers of electors have registered. Humanitarian activity and electoral activity are severely inhibited by the breakdown of the security arrangements in the south-east.

Baroness Amos: My Lords, in relation to the issue of military intervention and increasing numbers, there are two different strategies. The provincial reconstruction teams are a mix of the military and development specialists who are working not only in terms of the security environment but to bring development in key areas of Afghanistan. Of course, there remains a concern with respect to security, particularly in the south-east where there is a re-emergence of the Taliban, and a different strategy has to be deployed in those areas. On the specific issue of the elections, some 1.466 million were registered by 15 March. We are receiving daily updates on that, and they hope to complete the registration of some 10 million before the elections. There are eight regional centres, and there will be a focus on rural areas from May.

Lord Pilkington of Oxenford: My Lords, if the Minister is going to answer on behalf of the Conservative Party, could she could get properly briefed from this side of the House?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, I certainly did not answer on behalf of the Conservative Party. I said that I thought that there was some confusion, and we look forward to some clarity in due course.

The Earl of Sandwich: My Lords, returning to the question of health services, would the noble Baroness agree that there is a disproportionate responsibility on non-governmental organisations, and not nearly enough effort is going into reinforcing government services, especially health management? How can new emphasis be placed on this sector?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, if I understand the question asked by the noble Earl, one of the reasons that the focus of our assistance is on working with the Afghan government administration is precisely to strengthen government systems, including the health sector. We have worked with the Ministry of Health precisely in that kind of area.

Lord Avebury: My Lords, returning to the subject of women's health, has the noble Baroness seen the report of the United Nations rapporteur on violence against women, which indicates the extreme levels of domestic violence and the lack of any redress for women who are the victims of these activities? Does she think that the Government should increase the level of support for women's organisations in Afghanistan, such as the one that has recently been reported as being very active in the Herat region, so that women can take action against the deprivations that they are suffering?

Baroness Amos: My Lords, I have not seen the report by the UN rapporteur, but I am aware of the issues of violence against women in Afghanistan. They are of considerable concern, not least in the context of the registration of women for the elections. For example, only some 25 per cent of those who have registered to date are women. Many women are being prevented from registering by their husbands. This issue affects women's daily lives, and it will affect their longer-term contribution to the democratic process.

British Transport Police

Lord Faulkner of Worcester: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	What additional resources they are making available to the British Transport Police to enable the force to enhance security and surveillance in areas within its jurisdiction.

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, the resources available to the British Transport Police are a matter for the BTP committee, which oversees the force and sets its budget. For 2004–05, the committee has agreed an increase of £25 million, taking the budget to £162 million. The rail industry is responsible for providing the necessary funding for the force. In addition to this funding, the Government have agreed to provide the BTP in 2003–04 with an additional £2.3 million for anti-terrorist response vehicles and equipment in London.

Lord Faulkner of Worcester: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that reply. I am sure that he will want to join me in expressing a tribute to the officers of the British Transport Police for the courageous and effective work that they do in protecting the travelling public on the London Underground and on the national rail system. Notwithstanding the figures that he has just given in his reply on the funding settlement, is he aware that because of the need to provide for pensions and VAT, that settlement is still far short of what the force needs if it is to avoid a cut in the number of serving officers next year, rather than the increase which in order to counter terrorism most people would agree is reasonable? Does he further agree that it is wholly unreasonable for the railway companies and their passengers to pay the entire cost of the BTP anti-terrorism measures, which should more properly come out of national security budgets?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for giving me the opportunity to pay tribute to the work of the British Transport Police. We all know the strains and stresses that all our police forces are under at present. My noble friend will recognise that there has been a substantial increase in the budget for this year. The number of officers serving in the British Transport Police is the highest that it has been for the past 10 years, and 100 extra officers are being deployed on the London Underground. I hear what my noble friend says about extra resources. There are two glimmers of light on the horizon in that respect. First, VAT judgment is such as to ensure that the budget is increased by another £3.7 million for this current year. Secondly, the Government will certainly take account of BTP's needs in the comprehensive spending review.

Viscount Astor: My Lords, the British Transport Police faces a Herculean task and we all wish it well. However, yesterday a spokesman for the British Transport Police said that its budget left the service facing a real challenge. Indeed, the British Transport Police Federation chairman, Alex Robertson, said that funding cuts would mean 50 fewer officers. Can the noble Lord give the House a categorical assurance that, when we are facing what the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens called "an inevitable attack", there will be no cuts in officers during this difficult time?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I am obliged to repeat the statistic that I quoted in my original Answer. The budget has gone up by £25 million to £162 million. That is difficult to describe as a cut. The number of officers employed will increase over this coming year, and I have also given the indication that for obvious reasons the Government are keeping this budget under very close scrutiny, given the circumstances that we are all in at present.

Viscount Astor: My Lords, would the noble Lord be very kind and answer my question? Can he give an assurance that there will be no cuts in serving officers during this present time?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I have just quoted the budget, and I have indicated that the number of serving officers will increase. The concentration on the London Underground and an increase there is fully justified and supported by the Mayor of London, for the obvious reason that we recognise that the London Underground presents an obvious and conspicuous possible target.

Lord Imbert: My Lords, notwithstanding that there is an increase of £25 million in the British Transport Police budget, and that the Government have made a grant to the BTP, and in the light of the press revelation in the past 24 hours that only 95 per cent of London Underground stations are covered by closed circuit television, does the Minister agree that, however much it costs, every effort should be made to provide full coverage of closed circuit television on every London Underground station and every overground station in the country, not only in the interest of the travelling public, but in the interests of the nation as a whole?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, the noble Lord will recognise the resource implications of applying CCTV to every overland station in the country. He will appreciate, as I do, that the fact that 95 per cent of our Tube stations are covered by CCTV is an important defence. We will be looking at the question of the other 5 per cent. Closed circuit television clearly plays an important role in defence against any possible terrorist activity.

Lord McNally: My Lords, would the Minister concede that the worrying word in the Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, is "jurisdiction"? Is he absolutely sure that the various security and police forces now operating counter-terrorism are operating with the fullest co-operation: that there are no turf wars, no squirreling of information and that there is real joined-up government in this war against terrorism?

Lord Davies of Oldham: My Lords, I should have thought that co-ordination could be improved in every organisation, but I assure the noble Lord that effective co-ordination between all authorities concerned with counter-terrorist activity has been the source of very substantial activity in recent months. I would certainly want to reassure the House on this factor. Noble Lords may well have seen advertisements going up only this week about care with regard to the Underground and packages left unattended on it. That process was not the result of the horrors of Madrid. That process was already in hand as a reflection of co-ordinated activity before the Madrid disasters occurred.

Traffic Management Bill

Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and ordered to be printed.

Marriage

Lord Northbourne: rose to call attention to the role of marriage in securing the well-being of the nation's children and their parents in 21st-century Britain; and to move for Papers.
	My Lords, last week I mentioned to an acquaintance that I was introducing a debate on marriage. He said, "Are you for or against?". My answer is that I am for healthy, happy marriages and I am against dysfunctional, unhappy ones. Healthy marriages are good for children, for parents and for society as a whole, whereas dysfunctional marriages are hell for everybody.
	I am going to argue this afternoon that there are many things which can be done and should be done to help those who have made the choice to marry to have a more healthy and happy marriage, and to help those who are wondering whether or not to marry to make the choice wisely.
	It is very much in the interest of us all that more marriages should be happy marriages, and that couples before they enter into marriage should understand what it is all about. Since I introduced a debate on marriage five years ago, the Government have said, in their consultation document, Strengthening Families:
	"This Government believes that marriage provides a strong foundation for stable relationships. This does not mean trying to make people marry, or criticising or penalising people who choose not to. We do not believe that government should interfere in people's lives in that way. But we do share the belief of the majority of people, that marriage provides the most reliable framework for raising children".
	I agree. The decision to marry is a private one. But that does not mean that it is not one which has huge consequences for society and for the state, particularly where children are involved.
	The state has a major stake in marriage. For example, a much higher proportion of single parent families than married families are on benefits. The cost of marriage breakdown is about £5 billion a year, and that is not to mention the human cost, which cannot be quantified. The state should encourage and not compel. It should provide practical help and not moralise. But it cannot afford to ignore the problem.
	Marriage is a delicate subject to debate. I know many noble Lords have strong feelings on the subject. None of us wants to hurt or offend those whose lives have taken a different course to our own. I will do my best to present a balanced picture, but I hope noble Lords will have compassion on me—I have only 15 minutes.
	Fifty years ago in this country marriage was the norm—at the very heart of family life. Children born outside marriage—and there were a tiny minority of them—were called illegitimate and they were stigmatised and disadvantaged. Although there were reasons for this, it was cruel for the children and often cruel for their parents. Also in those days, some children suffered because their parents were locked together in a miserable, confrontational marriage. Today all that has changed. There is no longer any stigma to being born of parents who are not married. Few parents today stay together in unhappy marriages. In 2002, 40 per cent of children were born outside marriage, and in the same year more than 147,000 couples divorced.
	Alas, today we have a different set of problems. The sad truth is that still far too many of the nation's children are growing up in family circumstances which will deny them the chance to develop to their full potential, which will deny them equal opportunity in adult life. I hesitate to quote these educational statistics, but it is said that about 17 per cent of all children today leave school functionally illiterate, and last year only 55 per cent of girls and 44 per cent of boys got more than five passes at A to C level in GCSEs and GNVQs.
	These statistics reflect not only on the schools but also on the families in which those children grew up. I believe that the time has come to have another look at marriage. I suggest that the mission for any review of marriage should be to see if we can increase the percentage of the nation's children who grow up in a family which enables them to develop to their full potential, while at the same time providing a fulfilling life for their parents.
	I want to look at the needs of children. The physical needs of children and their parents are basic to well-being. Poverty, unemployment, inappropriate housing, inadequate services and so forth, all affect the ability of parents to give what they need to their children. This Government have boldly started to address many of these problems and I congratulate them on doing so. It has, however, to be said—which they realise—that there is very much more still to be done. However, due to the limited time this afternoon, I shall focus on the emotional needs of children which are also absolutely fundamental to children's well-being.
	Every young child needs to grow up in a cocoon of security, based on a loving, long-term relationship with one or two or more adults. In the majority of cases that will mean parents. A child needs to feel safe as it gradually explores the world into which it has been launched by birth. Children need routine. They fear change because the unknown is threatening to them.
	In the debate in 1999, the noble Lord, Lord Laming, said:
	"Disruption to family life and to the relationships which children have with the adult on whom they depend usually results in children becoming insecure and fearful of the future".—[Official Report, 24/3/99; col. 1324.]
	To feel safe, a child needs guidance and boundaries, to know what is expected of him and a secure framework in which to grow up. A father's role in the home is important. Children thrive on the "father/mother" relationship. Every child will seek out male and female role models whom they can respect and learn from. Parenting is a tough job; it is easier if there are two to share the burden. All these things, and many others, point to the advantages for a child of having two parents working together in a long-term, stable, committed, harmonious relationship. It also emphasises the case for a structure within which that relationship can be sustained.
	It is often said, particularly by the professionals and politicians, that family relationships matter more than family structures. Of course that is a perfectly true statement, but it is not the whole story. Committed relationships are very much more difficult to sustain without a structure of commitment and clear understanding by the parties who have entered into them. Today 50 per cent of all cohabiting couples with children part within 10 years, as against only 12 per cent of married couples with children.
	In this country today—it may be a pity but it is a fact—the only legal structure that we have for formalising a long-term commitment is marriage. The noble Lord, Lord Lester, introduced the Civil Partnerships Bill last year which contained provisions for heterosexual partnerships. The government Benches shot those proposals down in flames, and as far as I can see the Government have now backed off from heterosexual civil partnerships, which means that for the foreseeable future healthy marriage seems to be the best chance to secure for more children the support they need for a good start in life.
	In saying that, I acknowledge, of course, that marriage is not the only way. We all know of children who have grown up in single-parent families, cohabiting families and reconstituted families and have had a happy and successful life, but statistics show that, overall and on a range of measures, children brought up in a stable, happy, two-parent family will, on average, do better in school and in later life than those who are not. The noble Baroness, Lady Scotland of Asthal, said:
	"The research is clear. It tells us that children are best nurtured and cared for by two people living together in harmony on a long term basis".—[Official Report, 24/3/99; col. 1319.]
	I want to make it absolutely clear that I am not advocating trying to persuade people to marry, if they do not want to. I am not advocating trying to persuade people to stay married, if they do not want to. I am advocating positive action to help those who are married to have a full, healthy and happy marriage and to give those who are considering marriage a sound understanding of the advantages and challenges. The United States Congress has just voted 1.5 billion dollars for a programme that will attempt to achieve exactly that objective.
	I must admit that the social background in the UK today is not promising for a healthy marriage. Many young people today, especially young women, are unconvinced of the need for marriage. At the other end of the scale, uneducated and disadvantaged young women have trouble finding a decent man who will make a commitment. The father's traditional role in a low-income family as protector and provider has largely been taken over by the state. In 1999, David Sheppard said that if a father was excluded from regular employment, it had "crucial effects" on family life. He was also quoted as saying that he had been told that, in some disadvantaged communities,
	"'Men are regarded as redundant'—in the home as well as at work".—[Official Report, 24/3/99; col. 1298.]
	I have more on that subject, but I will not delay the House. I will move on to what I have marked as the action plan.
	I would not wish to end without giving the House some positive thoughts about things that could and should be done in this country today. Research over the past five years by One Plus One has shown that, by the time that a healthy marriage has degenerated into a dysfunctional marriage, it is usually far too late for intervention to be effective. Much more time and resources should be devoted to enabling young people to acquire the knowledge and the emotional and interpersonal skills that they will need before marriage, in the early years of marriage and at the transition points, before trouble sets in.
	Action should be concentrated in five areas. First, I should mention the physical and environmental problems to which I referred briefly. I shall say no more about those; we all know about them. The second point is that we should define more clearly the respective rights and responsibilities of parents and of the state, in respect of parenthood and in respect of marriage. The Government should, after careful consultation, define more clearly the respective rights and responsibilities of parents and the state for the care and education of the nation's children. They should explore the idea recently canvassed by the National Family & Parenting Institute of having a parents' charter, compact or contract between parents and the state.
	Many young people today are surprisingly ignorant about marriage and cohabitation. Research from 2002 shows that 50 per cent of the population incorrectly believe that unmarried people who cohabit have the same legal rights as married people. They do not. Government should take steps to correct young people's misconceptions about marriage. Marriage is not just an excuse for a party. Marriage is not a prop to shore up a failing romantic love affair. Marriage is not admitting defeat or sacrificing individuality but joining forces to be stronger together. It is creating a lifelong commitment with a partner, and it is a sign of maturity and courage. Marriage is a long-term committed partnership in which love can grow and mature.
	My third point is that we should work with parents, not against them. Nearly all parents want the best for their child. The Government have—I must make a modest criticism—made a major mistake with regard to the family: they have inflated the value of direct state intervention and tended to undermine the influence and confidence of parents. I believe that we should all value, respect and empower parents more and recognise the sacrifices that they make and the tough job that they do raising the nation's children. The state should provide and procure support for parents where and when they want it, and we should find more effective ways to consult parents of all backgrounds and listen to their concerns. We should provide or procure affordable, universally available education in relationships and communication skills at school and later in life. We should provide or procure affordable parenting education and support for all parents where and when they want it, especially around the birth of their first child.
	My fourth point is that the state and society should encourage and support healthy marriage. We should foster programmes to educate and help married parents to improve and enrich their relationships. We should foster programmes to inform young people about the nature of marriage and the sacrifices and advantages involved in a long-term commitment through marriage. We should support and encourage changes to make it easier for committed parents to reconcile family responsibilities and the demands of employment. We should find ways to support young men in becoming good fathers and contributors, not just financially but in an emotionally and morally supportive sense, so that their children can be truly proud of them.
	Finally, I turn to what is, perhaps, a controversial point. Governments should send strong signals of support to those who serve society. If long-term commitment between parents is best for children and therefore for the nation's future, governments should support those who decide to make that commitment. Words are not enough. At the least, we should consider making personal tax allowances transferable and examine the possibility of some sort of tax breaks or support. We should do so not because it would make a huge financial difference but because it would show parents who had made a long-term commitment to marriage for their own sake and for the sake of their children that we wanted to support them because we recognised that they were doing good for all of us.
	So far, I have referred only to the advantages to children and to the state of long-term commitment in marriage. There is another fundamental aspect: the spiritual strength and wholeness that it can bring to those who enter into the marriage commitment. I have run out of time, but I hope that the right reverend Prelates and other noble Lords will speak about the advantages of marriage for parents themselves. I beg to move for Papers.

Lord Haskel: My Lords, noble Lords will be pleased to hear that my intervention will be brief. I intend to make only one point, and my purpose is to draw the Minister's attention to an injustice.
	I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, about the importance of bringing up children within a stable marriage, preferably, as he put it, in a long-term, committed and harmonious marriage. A long-term marriage or relationship benefits the adults as well as the children. There is plenty of research to show that people are happiest and healthiest in a long-term stable relationship. I imagine that that is because there are enough other unstable elements in our lives that we must put up with.
	Within marriage, such long-term stable relationships are recognised in law and, to a certain extent, encouraged. They are encouraged by the state pension arrangements and by tax allowances between spouses, especially on death. Presumably, that is because they look after each other and are less demanding on the public services. What about long-term stable relationships outside marriage? Sadly, they are discriminated against and not recognised in law.
	Noble Lords may remember the late Lord Montague of Oxford. He entered your Lordships' House in 1997. Sadly, he died three years later. He and his companion were wonderful friends of my family for 25 years. They had that special relationship with my children that adult family friends sometimes have—a relationship free of the baggage that exists between parents and children. Lord Montague and I both worked in business and frequently exchanged ideas. He built up a successful engineering business, which was quoted on the London Stock Exchange. We were both friends of the late John Smith, and we worked together to build up the relationship between the Labour Party and the business community. When Lord Montague died, he and his companion had been together for 32 years. A real "'til death do us part" relationship. But the tax and pension benefits available to a surviving spouse were not available to his companion. They were not available because his companion was male. The home they shared had to be sold, because death duties did not recognise the surviving partner.

Lord Northbourne: My Lords, I wonder if I could draw the noble Lord's attention to the fact that the Motion specifically refers to families with children. The object of that was to focus on families with children, rather than on the vexed question of homosexual partnerships and marriage, which I felt would distract from the particular, rather narrower, issue which I hoped the House might wish to debate.

Lord Haskel: My Lords, I apologise if the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, feels I am trespassing on his debate, but I put my name down to speak and prepared this when the Motion on the Order Paper was just a debate about marriage. So I felt that it was relevant then. I would like to continue making this point because I have come to a point the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, mentioned in his speech.
	These benefits were not available because his companion was male, and the home that they shared had to be sold because death duties and pension arrangements did not recognise the surviving partner. This is the injustice to which I refer. Does my noble friend the Minister not find this discriminatory, intolerant, lacking in humanity and perhaps a little bit mean spirited? Because I do. But it is not difficult to put it right.
	The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, told us that the noble Lord, Lord Lester, introduced a Civil Partnerships Bill. It had its Second Reading in your Lordships' House on 25 January 2002. The Government indicated that they would introduce their own Bill, and so the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, did not proceed. As the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, said, there was some discussion about whether the Government's Bill would apply to same-sex partnerships or heterosexual partnerships, or both. I have established that the Department of Trade and Industry is handling the Bill, and it did briefly surface on 5 February this year in response to a Written Question to the Minster in another place, Jacqui Smith. She said that the Government hope to introduce the civil partnerships Bill into Parliament in this Session. The purpose of my intervention is simple. It is to try to speed it up.
	I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, on moving this debate. He has raised matters of enormous importance. Perhaps it might have been apt if I had said something about children who have been adopted by, or who are living with, same-sex couples. But my purpose is to try to shame the Government into speeding up the introduction of the civil partnerships Bill, because delay means that the injustice continues.

Lord Lucas: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for giving us the opportunity to debate this subject. I have been married three times and am still married, which does not make me an expert but does make me an addict. If I use the word "marriage" in this debate, I would personally intend it to extend to a civil partnership should we get a Bill on that subject, which I very much hope we will. The essence, to me, is of a public commitment made between two people: a commitment to sharing, to sacrifice when that is necessary and to accommodation with each other. All these words can be quite frightening if you have not experienced them at some stage. People can find commitment and sharing quite difficult, and the idea of sacrificing oneself so that someone else can succeed in something is, in some ways, quite alien to the spirit of our times. So if we are to encourage marriage, we ought to be looking for ways to encourage that sort of attitude in people. The best way to do that is to give people experience of it. The sort of place we ought to be doing that is at school.
	I certainly do not mean adding a few days to PSHE lessons and rather dry, didactic teaching about what a marriage should consist of, but giving people actual experience. I suppose that it used to be thought that sports offered such an opportunity but today, by and large, even team sports tend to be looked at as collections of individuals rather than teams. One or two, like rowing, are quite clearly team sports where people do rely on each other enormously. But sports have become a very individual thing. The opportunity is much more apparent in areas like drama, public speaking teams and various other extra-curricular activities. There are some very good examples around, where pupils form small teams or groups and really rely on each other to make a success. Keeping the group together, supporting the weaker members of the group, taking your turn and the success of the group are what is important rather than the success of the individual. This is the sort of experience that you can gain from engaging in such activities. We could do more to support such opportunities in schools and make it easier for schools to find and participate in such events. The Department for Education and Skills website is really getting quite good these days. The web is probably the right way in which to go. It would make it easier for schools to find these things and to say "If you're organising something like this, put it up on the website". People will know where to get to it. If someone comes up with an innovative idea that requires a little starting finance to get it running, there should be schemes to allow that to happen.
	I should also like to see the return of stories in schools, a long-time favourite subject of mine. I should like to see the return of teaching that is about people and the way people interact, react and behave. It used to be what history was about and, to some extent, what geography was about. Now it is not about people, it is about documents. You build up an understanding of how people are and, particularly, you build up an ambition to be like something, if you are learning about people. There is room for much more of the curriculum to have that slant, rather than a sort of pseudo-scientific approach to history. That has its function, perhaps at A-level, certainly at degree level. But most of us give up history at GCSE, and at GCSE it should be about people.
	I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, that we should make some public recognition of those people who make a public commitment as it is for the public good that they do such things. We should encourage that. There should be a definite advantage to being married in all its aspects. There should be small tax advantages. One way or another, you should be better off—not enormously, but you should be better off. Again, I would extend that to civil partnerships, as and when we get them.
	Beyond that, we are looking at how we can support an environment from which children and parents, in whatever relationship they find themselves, can benefit. As the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, knows, I am very much in favour of parenting classes. Such things exist, perhaps, but I have never come across them. They are not part of the package you are given when you get a young child, and that is the point when you need to have access to them. I have learnt a great deal from watching on television the noble Lord, Lord Winston, in his programme "A Child of Our Time". It deals with the problems that occur when bringing up children and how to solve those problems when things go wrong. The web is the obvious route to have access to that advice in an easy way and to be able to know where to turn to.
	The Government have produced an excellent service, NHS Direct, which I have used several times now. It is just easy. If there is a problem with the kid—it is developing spots or is behaving in a certain way—you ring up, you get treated well and you get an early diagnosis. The whole thing can be done without feeling you have to troop off to the hospital at two o'clock in the morning. You can do it while you are looking after the child in bed and your partner is getting some sleep. That sort of facility, which is easy to use, with someone helpful and interpretative at the other end, would be a useful way to go.
	Something else we should try and spread the word about is the joy of parenting—the sheer pleasure to be had from bringing up a child. One thinks of this as a problem for men; indeed, in many cases it is a problem for young men, who do not understand that participating in bringing up a child can be immensely pleasurable. Particularly for those whom my wife spends her time working with in prison, it is a revelation when, in the course of the project that she organises, they come to realise what pleasure they might get from being involved in their child's upbringing and how they can do it well. The problem then is that their womenfolk have become so used to the fathers not being there that they rather resent them saying that they want a role in bringing up the children. None the less, we need to make progress in that direction.
	Some good things are being done in schools, where the older children mentor the younger children and help bring them through education. In business life, many of us have been mentors to younger people who need some help making it in the world. But there is a gap; young people in their twenties never really get a chance to mentor school-age pupils, to learn the process of taking pleasure in looking after young children. We have become rather frightened by the prospect of paedophiles and pederasty. The immediate image that that sort of closeness conjures up is one of evil. There was a Coca-Cola cab parked outside the House of Lords when I arrived. It said, "Coca-Cola, the worldwide hug" and had a picture of a lot of people holding hands. If that is what "hug" means these days, we really are in trouble when it comes to understanding the pleasure that can be had with relationships between adults and children.
	One way in which we might look at this issue is to give extra support to schemes that develop relationships between adults in this country and children in the third world. If they were supported and made easy, and young people were encouraged to get involved, it might give them—or some more of them—a taste of what it means to be involved in bringing up a child and sharing the pleasures of a child's achievements.
	Finally, for people bringing up children on their own, it is an extremely hard and lonely business. We need to look at ways of making available to them the sort of support and community which they would get if they were part of a family network of a successful marriage. It strikes me that the people who really have this help to offer are the old. In many instances, the old are extremely lonely, but still quite capable of support and love. Something ought to be done in terms of the way we organise housing—we should not stick old people in ghettos where all they see are other old people just because it is easier that way. We ought to look at mixing communities, so that old people who are capable and willing to give support find themselves in close proximity to single parents of children, in particular, who would appreciate having that support. Perhaps in that way we can offer opportunities to recreate some sort of informal extended family.

The Earl of Listowel: My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lord Northbourne for initiating this important debate, and for his persistence on this issue. He has dedicated his life to ensuring that as many children as possible in this country are truly wanted and receive the nurturing they need. Marriage can be a means to promoting that goal. If parents have a mechanism by which they can clearly establish that they wish to make a lifetime commitment to one another and to have a child together, the child's prospects must be improved.
	This issue must be approached with great sensitivity, of course. Many parents choose not to marry; many children are not born to married parents; many married parents divorce; and many children whose parents are married have a very unhappy time, unfortunately.
	Fortunately, the media do a very good job of promoting marriage. In HELLO! magazine, one sees each week so-and-so getting married, with lots of lovely photographs. This is show, I know, but it is popular and it promotes marriage. It is interesting that apparently, more middle-class couples are choosing to marry; it is becoming more fashionable to get married. That is good news.
	What other means do the Government have to support parents, families and children? There are many roads, and the Government are vigorously following many of them. The Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill before the House is part of the Government's strategy to increase the numbers of houses. I believe that there are more families who are statutorily homeless than there were several years ago. When visiting families living in bed-and-breakfast accommodation, it is terrible to see the suffering they have to endure in those conditions. I welcome the Government's commitment to improving the supply of housing. I welcome what they are doing with Sure Start, intervening early to support families. I welcome what they are doing in investing in health and education. All this work is so important when it comes to improving outcomes for children.
	My noble friend referred to a parents' charter. Are the Government being careful to engage with parents as far as possible? I know that Sure Start comes from what the local people in an area want, and I welcome that. However, I should like to highlight the danger of not making sufficient effort to consult with parents.
	In other areas where adults take on the role of parents, we have often neglected that role. I am thinking particularly of residential childcare. Until recently in this country, 80 per cent of residential childcare workers, working in children's homes with children who have been neglected and abused, had no relevant qualification, and this was an important parenting role.
	We have neglected foster carers for many years and I am very pleased that the Minister is making such determined efforts to improve conditions for them. We had a debate last week on conditions for elderly people with dementia, many of whom are in residential care. It was quite clear in that debate that the staff working in those homes were not adequately prepared for that work. This is an important parenting role, if you like: when people are coming to the end of their life, they are very vulnerable, and it is as if they are parented.
	Your Lordships may be surprised at my bringing up the issue of prisons, but 10 per cent of children who go into care have some involvement in the criminal justice system, and more than 50 per cent have experienced abuse or neglect. I am sorry to bombard your Lordships with figures, but, sadly, 50 per cent of children in the criminal justice system have had experience of care, as have 25 per cent of prisoners in the adult population. For many male prisoners, their first experience of the father figure is their relationship with a prison officer. Those who are experienced in this area emphasise how very important those relationships with the prison officers are.
	In this country, prison officers have nine weeks' training before they take up their job. Prison officers who work with children have three or four additional days' training. That is deplorable. In Norway, I believe that they have a year's probationary period, a year in a special college, where they study the theory and then they practise in a mock-up prison. They also have opportunities to travel abroad to see how people practise, in England for instance, before they are fully paid-up prison officers.
	Martin Narey spoke to members of your Lordships' House yesterday evening. He was disappointed that prison officers receive only these nine weeks of training and pointed out that most probation officers have a degree and postgraduate qualifications. So what is going on here? That is my concern: that in the past these people, with this important parenting role, have been neglected.
	I very warmly welcome the Government's child poverty strategy but there has been concern about the emphasis on getting mothers into work—even mothers with very young children. We know that is the best way to get children out of poverty but parents, especially those with very young children, need to be able to choose whether to go to work or whether to care for their children. There has been concern that such a choice has not been made as easily available as it should be, especially given the lack of availability of good-quality childcare. I note with interest that a forthcoming conference, run by the One Parent Family charity, will concentrate on this issue of parents having the choice of whether to go into work or to care for their children.
	I recognise the commitment that the Government are making to this country's children, but I would be grateful if the Minister could offer an assurance that the Government really are seeking to engage parents as much as possible. Perhaps the suggestion made by my noble friend Lord Northbourne, of a parents' charter, would be one way of encouraging engagement with parents. I thank my noble friend Lord Northbourne for calling this debate and I look forward to hearing the Minister's response.

The Lord Bishop of Oxford: My Lords, like other noble Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for introducing a subject of such crucial importance to our society.
	Our present society is characterised by a wide range of different kinds of relationships: single parents struggling, very often heroically, to bring up children on their own or people who are cohabiting for a variety of reasons. Some people do not feel quite ready to commit themselves fully; others have had a bad experience, either their own or their parents' experience, and they have been hurt; others are against marriage on principle; and, as the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, drew to our attention, there are people of the same sex in lifelong partnerships. Why any government should give the marriage relationship a special place in their policy is therefore a very serious, searching question .
	The first and most prosaic reason, of course, is that it is good value for money. We know from the study undertaken by the House of Commons Library that in 1994 the cost of relationship breakdown, in terms of legal costs, court costs, benefit costs, and a whole range of other costs, was in the region of £4 billion. Compare that with the mere £5 million which is put into marriage and relationship support. Simply on economic grounds, therefore, it is clearly very wise and prudent of government to do all they can to prepare people for marriage properly and to support the marriage relationship.
	Secondly, and more directly related to the debate, support for children, and more generally the family, crucially is provided through supporting marriage relationships. I am personally very glad to be associated with a number of organisations, such as our own diocesan organisation PACT—Parents and Children Together—the Family Nurturing Network, the Mothers' Union, and so on, all of which are fully committed to supporting good parenting and to supporting families.
	We can all agree that children need to be supported in any way possible. That does not divide anybody in this House and I hope nobody in our society. We need to do all we can to support children, whatever the context in which they are growing up. However, research shows that a stable and loving marriage relationship has enormous benefits for the children. The effect of relationship breakdown is shown in the children's poor performance: at school very often; leaving school early; difficulty in getting a job; a range of illnesses; themselves getting married too young, and so on.
	Under the present government arrangements, MARS—Marriage and Relationship Support—brings together family support and marriage support. The voluntary organisations can see many advantages in this, but it is very important, within that overall field, not to allow support for marriage in any way to be downgraded. As I have tried to suggest, supporting marriage is one of the very best ways in which we can actually support and help children to grow up with the kind of emotional, physical and spiritual health we would like for them.
	As the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, has mentioned—I do not have time to develop the thought but I agree with a great deal of what he said—we cannot separate support for marriage from wider considerations of economic policy, social policy and political policy, in a whole range of areas. This is a subject which includes the whole gamut of government departments and government policies.
	We need to do all we can to support those organisations, bodies and institutions which are trying not only to support family life but also to support committed relationships. I was very struck recently to read of a new initiative by One Plus One called "Couples Direct", which is an interactive Internet service. Its research has shown that marriage preparation and marriage support, whether done by Churches or anybody else, is extremely patchy, not always accessible to people, and that the vast majority of people who need it probably do not draw on it. They are therefore trying to make marriage support more accessible and more user-friendly through this interactive Internet service. It seemed to me to be a very valuable initiative.
	First, there are therefore the economic benefits of supporting marriage and, secondly, the crucial importance as far as children are concerned of long-term, committed, stable, loving relationships.
	I now come to my third point, which is a rather more difficult one to make. At the heart of marriage is the idea of a clear, public, lifetime commitment. From a Christian perspective, this commitment reflects a fundamental commitment or covenant between God and humanity. That is symbolised most beautifully in the Hebrew scriptures by the great overarching rainbow after Noah's flood. It is a sign of God's undeviating good will, unswerving love for humanity as a whole and a covenant into which the people of Israel consciously entered; and from a Christian point of view a covenant which comes to its focus in Jesus in whom earth and heaven are joined, never to be unjoined.
	The Church has always held out the wonderful ideal that the relationships of men and women at their best should reflect that covenant of God and humanity that runs through the different marriage services. The marriage relationship is meant to reflect that covenant of God and humanity. I believe that it is right that the law of our country, or any country, should have a high ideal of that relationship expressed in one way or another through its public policy and through its laws.
	A few years ago there was a famous debate between Lord Devlin and H.L.A. Hart, the philosopher, on the relationship between morality and law. Lord Devlin's point was that nothing in life is value-free or neutral and that the law of every country reflects, through its history, culture and religion, a particular understanding of marriage. So it is in this country.
	I suppose the question arises of why we should continue to give marriage a very special place in our law and public policy. Marriage belongs to all human beings; it is not an invention of the Christian Church. In fact, the Church of England believes that when two people make promises to each other in public that brings about a marriage. You do not have to be in church to get married. Of course we would love everyone to come to church to receive God's blessing upon their marriage; and Jesus performed his first miracle at Cana of Galilee. As a character in one of Dostoevsky's novels said, Jesus performed his miracle to increase people's joy.
	However, many people today get married in register offices. Of course those are valid marriages. From the Church's point of view I believe that we should support the work of registrars, who do all they can to prepare people for marriage properly and who also indicate to them the kind of help they can get. In that connection, I ask the Minister when we shall hear more from the Government about what is going to be asked of registrars under the new dispensation to Parliament of the regulatory reform order and explanatory document. The Church of England is also revising its laws on marriage and it would be interesting to know exactly where the Government stand on that. Therefore, whether marriages take place in a Church or in register offices we need to do all we can to support them.
	I move on to a slightly more difficult point. I bear in mind what the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, said. I totally accept that people of the same or opposite sex cohabit and live wonderfully mutually supportive and loving lives. There is absolutely no doubt about it. In many cases they put married relationships to shame. From a philosophical point of view, however, I would say that those relationships are in some way parasitic upon publicly stated vows, above all the vows of marriage. After all, when people enter into cohabitation, in their hearts in some way or another they want to make those kind of life-long vows. The fact is that most young people still want to get married. Even people who have divorced, although they have had a bad experience, still would like to find the right person to whom they can make a lifetime commitment.
	So, I do not think that the Government should be timid or frightened about continuing to maintain in the law of this country a very special place for marriage. I do not think that it denigrates other relationships which in their own way can be very special, and from which we can learn.

Baroness Howe of Idlicote: My Lords, we clearly all owe the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, our considerable gratitude for continuing to keep our minds on the importance of marriage for the family and children. Indeed, long before I was privileged to join your Lordships' House, I have since discovered that the noble Lord instituted many debates on marriage and the importance of the role of fathers and so on. Since I have been here, he has certainly continued to keep our minds firmly focused on these subjects through a number of different means.
	If I look back over my lifetime—it is a shock to realise just how long that now covers—I am amazed at the changes that have taken place in the pattern of domestic family life. I refer not just to changes but also to diversification.
	At the start of my adult life—now half a century ago—marriage was certainly the conventional norm; the norm for young people from all walks of life, wishing to start a life together and raise children. It was the norm not just for them but for their neighbours as well and it lasted, in most cases, for the rest of their lives.
	I was powerfully reminded of this the other day when I looked again at the 1957 seminal research by Michael Young and Peter Willmot, Family and Kinship in East London. Your Lordships will recall their brilliant description of the everyday built-in extended family support systems that then prevailed and the extent to which those were weakened as the younger generations moved out to the new housing estates in the suburbs. But what for me today is most significant about that book is that from beginning to end the term used is "marriage"—certainly not "cohabitation".
	That is clearly not the case today. We seem to have moved from an almost total marriage convention—sustained by fairly draconian divorce laws—to a situation where far fewer young people actually marry; 13 per cent of women between 18 and 49 were cohabiting in 1998—up from 8 per cent 10 years previously. If they do decide to marry it will be considerably later—most probably only at the long delayed moment in their thirties and sometimes their forties when they decide to start a family. Even for those who do marry, divorce—with or without remarriage—is increasingly common, as we have already heard—and, all too often while their children are still young. Like it or not, the trend towards cohabitation and more frequent divorce is here to stay. Almost 30 per cent of children experience divorced parents by the time they reach 16 years.
	Of course many factors have been at work to bring this about. The divorce laws have been relaxed considerably. The stigma of divorce that once kept many couples together has almost disappeared. Women, who in the "old days" more often than not had no other means of support for themselves and their children but their husband's income, are now a considerable part of the workforce and are either in jobs or able to return to employment relatively easily.
	Since the 1970s and the Sex Discrimination and Equal Pay Acts women have far greater economic independence. "Women's Lib" really did liberate women in this country. Sadly, we have heard of other countries where it has not done so in the same way. It included liberation from the ties of broken marriages. That may be seen perhaps from the fact that women initiate seven out of 10 divorces.
	Of course a number of other factors have worked in the same direction: the liberalising effect of the pill; the lack of social stigma in having children "out of wedlock"; the fact that many of the younger generation earn considerably more than their parents; and the fact that people now wish to "enjoy life" before settling down later than used to be the case—considerably later, incidentally. A great deal is explained, is it not, by some of those happenings?
	Even so, we need to remind ourselves that by no means all those changes are bad. Your Lordships would not expect me to say they were, not least with my interest in equal opportunities over many years. In the past, there were far too many appalling cases of women locked into violent, nightmarish marriages who did not dare to complain. There were also cases of women who unwillingly had abortions or put children up for adoption. I listened to a number of those cases and worried about them. Women today can be spared that kind of anguish as a direct result of changes in attitudes.
	Even so, many Members of this House, of which I am certainly one, continue to believe that the institution of marriage is the best way in which to bring up children and that it is the most likely way to succeed. We believe that it is the best way to provide the mutual love, support and background that are so important for the development of young human beings.
	However, we can, and should, do far more to promote the value of the institution of marriage to young people. The Government's 2002 report Moving Forward Together rightly makes clear their intention to improve the delivery of marriage and relationship support services. I believe that it identified 10 areas for future development and action. The Government's intention was confirmed in a reply to a Parliamentary Question from David Kidney MP in another place a little while ago. Perhaps when she replies the Minister will be kind enough to bring us up to date on what has been achieved so far.
	In tackling this question, it is important to be realistic about the situation on the ground. Like it or not, the trend towards cohabitation and more frequent divorce is as I have already mentioned. So we should, and must promote—via parent contracts; citizenship classes; in schools, where action is possible very early indeed; and by other means—a true understanding of marriage as a long-term commitment and as the best possible way to bring up children.
	It is also vital that we give far greater respect and priority to the important role of parents. As the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, and other noble Lords have said, we need to listen to what parents want. It is very fashionable today to consult and listen to many groups including, rightly, children but, sadly, parents do not seem to be a high priority.
	Far more authoritative research is needed on the effect of family break-up on children. There is not much research on that subject.
	As the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, also said, we are facing a long battle. We are not likely to turn back the clock completely, however long and hard we try. Above all, we must think about what else we can do to mitigate the damage that is beyond doubt inflicted by the family conflicts and poor parenting that can flow from the decline in the institution of marriage.
	As I know all too well from my many years in juvenile courts, Moving Forward Together rightly identified family conflicts and poor parenting as key risk factors for adolescent problems of drug abuse, youth crime, school-age pregnancy, school failure, mental health problems and homelessness. In other words, we must try much harder to prevent the social exclusion of such young people. The Government want to achieve that; indeed, we all do.
	A good start has been made by our increasingly firm commitment, as expressed by the Government on our behalf, to put the interests of the child first. We have excellent programmes such as Sure Start. As the Minster knows, I am enthusiastic about Sure Start and many other noble Lords are clearly enthusiastic about it too. At last, we have a Children Bill, even if that Bill does not yet contain all the powers that some of us hope for, and a proposed child commissioner for England.
	But should we not now be looking harder for new ways of harnessing the extended family? As has already been pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, we are all living much longer and healthier lives. The voluntary sector has long played a crucial role in sustaining cohesive communities. Today, those of us who have arrived at what might euphemistically be called "the retirement age" are, and should be, an increasingly obvious target for voluntary organisations to recruit to help to provide active and experienced support for failing families. Home Start is a good example of that.
	I believe that the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, also mentioned grandparents—if he did not, I am sure that he intended to do so. It remains an absurd situation that grandparents, who are immensely willing to take charge of grandchildren in the sad event of a family breakdown, find themselves less adequately resourced to do that job than they would be as foster parents. With the right practical, as well as financial support, we know that many more grandparents would be willing to take charge of grandchildren.
	Returning to the Wilmot and Young description of family life, surely what we need is a new form of extended kinship support. In some cases, perhaps we even need to be able to make use of the wider familial network that can arise as a result of several marriages and co-habitations.
	Making it possible for parents to have time to spend with their children is, perhaps, most important of all. Here I am referring to the vital need to rearrange all working patterns in sufficiently flexible ways to allow parenting to be effective parenting. I refer not just to women's working patterns but to patterns for both sexes.
	The future citizens of this country are our responsibility, whether we have children of our own or not. Above all, as we plan for the future, we need to remember that the UK is a signatory of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and is therefore committed to work towards what is best for each child.
	The institution of marriage is still the best, even if not the only, means of achieving that objective. The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, has done us a great service in reminding us of that principle. This should be our guiding principle in all that we try to do.

Baroness Strange: My Lords, we must all be in a permanent state of gratitude to my noble friend Lord Northbourne for yet again giving us an opportunity to emphasise the importance of marriage, the family and the upbringing of children.
	Marriage is never easy. It is not always a bed of roses; there is the odd thorn. Sometimes it does not work out and that is a sadness for everyone concerned. There are many reasons why it collapses, but the trouble is that we are all human beings and none of us is perfect. Sometimes when everyone is trying hard, it still does not work out.
	As a family, we have all been very lucky. My parents were happily married for 46 years, and at every anniversary my father would quote how long they had been married, and say, "In all that time we have had only one fight", and then he would add, "of course, we do have an armistice now and then". We celebrated their ruby wedding in this House in 1968 with a small party. Our ruby wedding was also celebrated here with children and grandchildren, pages and bridesmaids, and the best man. I made a three-tier cherry wedding cake but somehow I got the mechanics wrong and the top tier flew off to be caught by Miss McWilliam. My middle sister celebrated her ruby wedding on a cruise and we had a family ruby dinner for my youngest sister here last December. We went for gold in 1952, and so did my husband's parents in 1966. That is so much for which to thank God. If I did not collapse into sleep at night I would still be praying.
	Families are at the heart of everything. They are that small warm place that you retreat to when you can think of nothing else. Those of us with happy childhoods and happy families always have some place that we can retreat to when all else goes wrong. The world can be a big cold place, and what everyone needs is one place where they can throw off their hat, take off their shoes and know that give or take, and despite all the criticism and advice, everyone is on their side.
	There are fashions in morality, in commitment between two people. Fashions change just like clothes; they come and go like the tide. I read recently that today's teenagers are all for marriage, against teenage pregnancies and for children being brought up in a family. The tide is turning. For the tide is part of the sea and that does not change.
	Marriage is like the sea, one of the eternal values, which does not change, though it has fashions like the tide. Better and worse tend to get mixed up. Richer must be nice, though poorer is what we usually end up with. With luck we have quite a bit of health, though sickness is always lurking round the corner. But for the mutual society, help and comfort one cannot beat marriage, nor as a means of bringing up children.
	Marriage has been going on for a long time, as long as there were people. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford mentioned the marriage at Cana in Galilee. An old cousin, Albert Baillie, who used to be Dean of Windsor, said when he married us that it was no accident that the first miracle occurred at a marriage—at Cana in Galilee. It was simply putting the importance of marriage first.
	The cycle of marriage is the cycle of life—you start as a child and grandchild, you end up as a parent and grandparent. But throughout life there is a commitment at both ends. Marriage anniversaries start close together with paper and flowers and wood, but after the 15th year with crystal and glass—very useful too after the wedding presents have all got smashed and there are no longer six of everything—they stretch out to every five years. Twenty is china, which fills a splendid gap. Perhaps they are celebrated every five years because time has already begun to whiz; you are always living through tomorrow before yesterday has even finished.
	My husband and I are working up to 52 years and many of your Lordships have much longer to celebrate. When I go to the AGM of the War Widows Association at the end of this month, I am always conscious of how short a time of happiness they had together and it makes me count my own blessings. We have also been blessed with children who are nearly all married themselves and we have the joy of grandchildren. Many of my noble friends share this joy with grandchildren, great-nephews and great-nieces and godchildren. Happiness is hearing four year-old Alfred say: "Excuse me, Grandma, will you read me another story?". However, I have my fingers crossed for next Friday when my 13 year-old French granddaughter, Pelagie, is bringing 65 of her French school friends to tour the Palace of Westminster. Watch this space, as the advertisements say.
	Last month, I was with the Arts and Heritage Group in the Royal Academy looking at 15th-century Flemish and Burgundian Books of Hours. There were many visions of people suffering the torments of hell. But there did seem to be one or two escape routes through purgatory for which I felt one might qualify: "The good but not so good", "The bad but not so bad" and "The long and faithfully married". I think there is hope for all of us there.

The Lord Bishop of Leicester: My Lords, I too welcome the opportunity for debate provided by the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne. He is right to say that healthy marriages are good for children and adults and to point to the importance of supporting marriage and enhancing awareness of its benefits. Whoever said that marriage was not so much a noun as a sentence got it badly wrong. Marriage remains the major institution of family life, upheld by the teachings of the Churches and other faith communities and the values of civil society. The Churches believe that marriage is a gift from God to the whole of creation, which enables the whole human family to flourish and not just those who are themselves married.
	The Church of England in its response to the Government's consultation document Supporting Families recognised the lack of consensus in society about marriage and family life and the difficult task of helping government to forge constructive policies to support families. However, it went on to say this:
	"We have argued that families are simultaneously public and private institutions . . . But it is simply not possible to have a 'value free' or neutral policy . . . An ideological commitment to pluralism, which rules out any possibility of one family form being judged better than another, provides an inadequate basis for developing a sound family policy."
	The response of the Church of England went on to,
	"urge the Government to develop its family policy with a clear commitment to the support of marriage as its basis."
	There remains a reluctance to prioritise one family form over another. We face a problem here in perceiving as mutually exclusive support of marriage and other forms of family life, including individuals in situations of hardship. In reality, marriage needs to be supported alongside parental relationships outside marriage for the benefit of children and adults within all family situations.
	We need a framework that recognises the institution of marriage and the reality of those who do not choose it, for both are part of the fabric of our society. We need a family policy towards children with clear commitment to supporting marriage as its bedrock while addressing the realities that we encounter in society. With its clear teaching on marriage and family life, the Church can be seen as standing for an ideal while at the same time serving in an enormous variety of ways individuals and communities for whom this is not an option. The Church is involved in supporting marriage and in working with those who are victims of broken relationships, both in marriage and other family patterns.
	In a confused society there are three particular contributions which those of us outside government can make to the national understanding of marriage. First, we need better teaching about the nature of marriage. The bishops of the Church of England in their recent teaching document have said that there is a great deal in our culture which discourages us from making binding and public promises. That is undoubtedly a difficult thing to do and requires courage but the promises are an important part of entering marriage.
	If love is to grow, it needs an explicit commitment of the couple to stay with each other through changing circumstances, through personal development and growth and through the process of growing older and approaching death. But the promises are also liberating. Through them we focus our intentions and offer one another a shared future in a way that we could hardly dare to do otherwise. By making our promises in public, we call on a community of well-wishers to support us in our resolve to be a couple, an important assistance in a culture that is generally unsupportive to any kind of commitment.
	Secondly, there is much that many of us can do in contributing towards preparation of couples for the married state. The Church invests considerable resources in this kind of preparation for marriage and in supporting people in their married lives. Over 90 per cent of marriage preparation—a major aspect of relationship support and education—is conducted by the voluntary sector. A great majority of this is carried out by the Churches, including the Church of England, often in partnership with other agencies such as Relate. This provides secure, well-managed occasions for couples to discuss their subconscious impressions of marriage implanted at an early age by their own parents. Such discussions are often a way to address relationship problems which can otherwise surface later in life in a much more troublesome way. This points us to the need not just for marriage preparation but also for marriage exploration—ongoing packages of support for people that enable relationships to last for a lifetime.
	We need an understanding of marriage as a process not just an event. We may need to see that cohabitation might for some be part of that process by which couples explore marriage, demanding similar social obligations as a formally married couple. We need to recognise better the work of organisations involved in marriage and relationship support. Despite the increasing rise in the rate of divorce and the added choice couples now have on where they are married and by whom, the Church of England still conducts about 25 per cent of marriage ceremonies a year. In the year 2000, 65,000 couples were married according to the rites of the Church of England.
	Thirdly, we need to do more to support the victims of relationship breakdown and especially of marriage breakdown. For example, the Children's Society estimates that some 100,000 children, some as young as six, run away from home or from care each year and risk being attacked on the streets. In partnership with the Churches, the Children's Society has established family mediation programmes and schools education packs to prevent children running away. It has developed outreach work and drop-in centres to get them off the streets if they do run. Safe emergency accommodation is available and missing persons interviews can be conducted when the police return children home to find out what made them run in the first place.
	These are examples of practical support for children that go beyond gesture politics. Verbal support for marriage and the family is easily given but concern for marriage often comes too late. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford pointed out, the cost of picking up the pieces of broken relationships resulting from demands made on health resources, social security and social services, legal aid, court, tax and benefits, is enormous.
	The crucial point that needs to emerge from this debate is the need for clearer government policy towards supporting married relationships. The bishops' teaching has stated:
	"By marriage a new unit of society is created: a couple, stronger than the sum of its members, held together by the bond of domestic friendship. Together the couple can extend love to other people . . . Their love enables them to make a strong contribution to society so that the weakening of marriage has serious implications for the mutual belonging and care that is exercised within the community at large".
	It is, therefore, vital for all of us that the Government support marriage, as well as parental relationships more generally, because of its crucial role in providing a basis for bringing up children, as well as further benefits for the couple and for wider society as a whole.

Baroness Sharp of Guildford: My Lords, I should like to join with others in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for initiating this very interesting and important debate.
	I also have to declare an interest. I cannot claim 52 years of successful marriage, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Strange, but I can claim 42 years of successful marriage. I am the product of a happy marriage that itself lasted for more than 55 years and provided a happy family background for four.
	The debate initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, concerns the role of marriage in securing the well-being of the nation's children and their parents in the 21st century. As he said, he is not trying to persuade those who are not married to do so, but he nevertheless argued both that the framework of marriage provides a bulwark to support long-term relationships that are so important, and that the state might encourage marriage through tax incentives and similar policies of support for the process of marriage. That theme has been echoed by a number of speakers, including the two right reverend Prelates. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester has just said that the Government should provide a clearer, more overt policy to support marriage.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, quoted from a publication issued in 2002 by what is now the Department for Constitutional Affairs, but was then the Lord Chancellor's Department, Moving Forward Together. A paragraph in that publication points very clearly to the importance for children of long-term stable relationships. The document states:
	"There is a significant relationship between parental experiences and the outcomes experienced by children once they reach adulthood. In general, children brought up by birth parents experience the lowest levels of conflict and early difficulty. Children brought up by two birth parents until the age of 16 have higher levels of life satisfaction and more family support, fewer psychological problems and less conflict at every age".
	Conversely, the report concludes:
	"Parental conflict is an important influence on a number of adverse outcomes in both intact and separated families".
	There are knock-on effects for children even in families that stay together if there is parental conflict.
	The report continues:
	"There is a greater probability of poor outcomes for children from separated families than others. Outcomes for children who have suffered disruption and multiple family structures are worse than for those living continuously with a lone parent or step family. Constant changes to residence and contact arrangements have a particularly negative impact. A 'bad' divorce or relationship breakdown is therefore particularly likely to affect children adversely".
	As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford stressed, the costs of family breakdown are substantial. The House of Commons Library put them at £4 billion to £5 billion a while back. In Greater London alone the cost for the police and social security services of responding to domestic violence is put at £278 million.
	The position that these Benches adopt is that it is not for the state to lay down moral rules. The role of the state is to give people the opportunity to fulfil themselves in any way they choose as long as, in the process, they do not harm others. But what becomes clear from the debate that we have had is that in the process of marriage breakdown children may be harmed. That in itself provides a case for legitimate intervention on the part of the state. In that respect these Benches have backed a succession of children Acts from the 1948 Act onwards. I am delighted that we now have a Children Bill to bring these procedures up to date. These Benches support many aspects of that Bill.
	It seems to me that in all respects the role of the state is to encourage but not to compel, to provide practical help but not to preach. Therefore, our emphasis is not on marriage per se but on the means of providing the safe, secure, loving long-term relationships that children need. It is the quality of the relationship that is the key issue rather than the precise legal institutional framework of that relationship.
	That said, I think that one can perhaps exaggerate the degree to which there has been a breakdown of relationships. I was interested in evidence produced by Kathleen Kiernan of the Department of Social Policy and Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion, London School of Economics in an article that appeared in Population Trends in the summer of 1999. On cohabitation across western Europe she stated:
	"We found little evidence that pre-marital cohabitants in their first union are more likely to experience marital breakdown than those who marry directly. Pre-marital cohabitation may be an effective way of selecting out partnerships with an enhanced risk of breakdown . . . Undoubtedly, the evidence from this and other studies show that most European countries are experiencing changes in the ways that men and women become couples, but whether countries are on a trajectory to an ultimate destination where marriage and cohabitation are largely indistinguishable or even where cohabitation overtakes marriage as the dominant form of union awaits the future".
	On balance, the evidence still suggests that most people will spend most of their lives in a family environment. I will sum up some of the statistics.
	There are 16 million families in Britain and 11.7 million children. Four fifths of those dependent children live in a family with two parents. Four out of 10 babies are now born outside marriage, but many of those parents go on to marry later. Two in five marriages are likely to end in divorce, but, again, people remarry. One in four children is likely to experience the break up of their parents' marriage by their 16th birthday. That statistic was quoted by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe. It is the most frightening statistic. If that break-up is violent and leads to distress, there are problems that knock on for the children.
	The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester quoted the fact that each year 1,000 children run away from home because they are frightened of what is going on there. We know from the experience of Childline that many children ring up who are enormously distressed by their parents quarrelling with each other.
	The problems caused by the break-up of relationships and the development of new relationships should also concern us. In the earlier quote that I gave, the problems of the multiple break-up and complex relationships should not be underestimated.
	In a school where I was a governor for some time, we had a number of children from disturbed homes. I remember the reception class teacher talking to me about one young lad. She talked about school being an oasis of stability in a very turbulent little life, where the mother was likely to have different boyfriends from week to week and where the child was sometimes loved and sometimes not loved. We know that such relationships later on create children who are disruptive in school, drop out of school and cause all kinds of problems. If possible, we want to be able to intervene on such relationships and prevent those problems emerging.
	Yesterday I attended a meeting organised by the group against corporal punishment. They had invited Professor Joan Durrant, a Canadian academic who has made a special study of the effect of the abolition of corporal punishment in Sweden. In this country we are experiencing an increase in hooliganism, youth theft, drug use and drug-related problems. If Professor Durrant's statistics are to be believed, Sweden has experienced a substantial drop in all of those over the past two years.
	The most significant thing that she said was this: "Do you know that when a child is born in Sweden the parents are provided with an enormous amount of information and help with bringing up that child? When I had my first child, did anybody talk to me about how I should bring it up? Did the doctor or the midwife talk to me? No. You learn about the little baby, but nothing more—not about how to cope with the terrible twos, the seven year-old or the 13 year-old."
	That struck a bell with me. Parenting classes need to be pursued when there is a captive audience. The right reverend Prelate is right. We need to teach people more about bringing up children—and this is the point when we should do it.
	I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne. We should put more effort into parenting and teaching parents about the importance of stable relationships.

Baroness Seccombe: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, on instigating this highly valuable and significant debate. One cannot say that it is timely, because it is timeless and always of consequence and concern to many of us.
	Marriage has been for me a wonderful experience and I have been blessed with 53 years of amazing happiness and contentment. I appreciate that I have indeed been fortunate, and I hope that it does not sound smug to say that both my sons have extremely happy marriages, and my elder son has passed the 25-year mark. I am therefore a strong believer in the institution and value the satisfaction that it can bring to all members of the family.
	Some would say that, with such limited experience, I am not the one to speak on this subject. However, I am acutely aware of the difficulties experienced by those who have not been so lucky and find themselves having to raise their children alone.
	I think that raising children with two "live in" parents in the same home helps to give children that stability which is, and has been throughout the centuries, essential to enable them to thrive and develop. I could weep for those children who live out of a suitcase, spending half of each week with one parent and the next half with the other. Often each parent has formed a new relationship, and there may be other children from different liaisons, so that the child can become bemused and disorientated as to where home really is. I cannot think of a more confusing background in which to grow up—being tossed from one to the other. Sadly, my father died when I was 10, so I grew up in a single parent family. I really believe that it was for me a more stable atmosphere than being pulled and pushed in all directions.
	In July 1994, I had the privilege of piloting the Marriage Bill through this House, which allowed weddings to take place outside a conventional venue—though, as we stressed at the time, the location had to be appropriate and dignified. I enjoyed the experience and hoped that it would be a small gesture in bolstering the tradition of marriage.
	Sadly, statistics reveal that today more than 40 per cent of marriages end in divorce, and in 2002 the number of divorces granted was 160,000, with the average length of the marriage only nine years. That says to me that in less than 10 years of marriage, 320,000 young people—bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, full of hope—have become disenchanted, and many, in spite of all the difficulties of caring for young children, have decided to lead separate lives.
	Of course, the choices available to young people today are very different from when I was young. More women work, earn their own money and want to pursue their own careers. They are having children later in life, and fewer of them. For some, marriage does not seem to be such an obvious and desirable path as it once was.
	I want to stress the idea of a stable family relationship being the essential environment in which to raise a child. Children from permanent, secure and strong family units are more likely to leave school with qualifications. They have the loving support of their parents to help them through school, university and perhaps even raising their families. This support is stronger when it comes from two parents who live together in the same house.
	It is the breakdown of the relationship between parents, be they married or not, that causes unhappiness and distress for children. This distress can manifest itself in many ways. Of the 60,000 children living in care, 98 per cent are there due to family breakdown. Aside from the huge cost to the taxpayer, it is worth bearing in mind that 39 per cent of all male prisoners under the age of 21 have been in care.
	At the same time, young people are maturing much more quickly. The number of girls having under-age sex in this country had doubled in the past 10 years and in 2000 there were 98,000 teenage conceptions. Abortion rates nearly doubled between 1971 and 2000. It seems to me that the quality of life for many young people today is poorer and certainly much harder than it was. Truancy is up, as well as anti-social behaviour, crime, drug addiction and violence.
	Being a parent today is a tough and difficult task. One of the figures that I found shocking when researching this speech was that during May 2002, more than 900 "truancy sweeps" were carried out. Twelve thousand children were stopped and about half of these were accompanied by a parent. If parents actively encourage their children not to attend school, then perhaps it is because neither do they see education as important, nor the state as helping them or their children.
	The rise in the number of pupils excluded from school is another area I would like to touch on as I feel that education is of absolutely vital importance to all children. According to figures from the Department for Education and Skills, released in May 2003, permanent exclusions in England increased by 4 per cent from 9,135 in 2000–01 to 9,540 in 2001–02. More parents appealed against expulsions in 2001–02 compared with the year before, but the proportion that were successful fell from 32 per cent to 24 per cent. We need to keep these children in some form of schooling and address the problems of disruption, violence and truancy by helping parents and their children to understand that education is crucial, rather than alienating them. Stable families are more likely to produce stable children and a strong parental influence will ease the burden on teachers, care workers and, therefore, the state.
	I believe that we need to do as much as possible to make life as easy as possible for parents, as they face the daunting challenges of raising children. Times have changed and we have to be progressive and open-minded, but not at the expense of the wellbeing of children today. Relationships last longer when they are not put under pressure, whether financial or social.
	I, too, want to mention taxation. Apart from anything else, our taxation system no longer favours married couples. The married couple's tax allowance was replaced in 2000 by a children's tax credit which enables people with one or more children under 16 to reduce their income tax bill by up to £520. There is, therefore, no financial incentive to be married, unless one has children. Of course, financial reasons should not be cause alone to enter into marriage, but, as my noble friend Lord Lucas said, any encouragement we can provide should not be ignored.
	Finally, I feel I should finish on an upbeat note. Many speakers have looked at the surrounding problems of marriage. But my message is one of optimism and hope that with the right encouragement and support many more parents will be able to enjoy the contentment, companionship and pleasure of a long and flourishing relationship within marriage.

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, I join all noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for initiating this debate. I cannot compete with the longevity of your Lordships' marriages, but I declare an interest as a married woman, a parent and a step-parent. I hope that to that extent I bring a little experience to the debate.
	The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, covered a great deal of ground and, as always, he focused on his desire to support children. I pay tribute to him for that. Like him, the Government and I recognise that marriage is the surest foundation for raising children. The stability, love and support for children that we wish to see in all relationships between adults who have children should be paramount and we recognise the importance of marriage in that.
	However, I noticed that the noble Lord also seemed to be saying that, on the one hand, the state needs to be part of the solution by providing the support while, on the other hand, criticising the state for taking away responsibility. I do not believe that we have taken away responsibility, but I accept that the support we provide is critical to enable our children to flourish.
	My noble friend Lord Haskel spoke with passion and I will ensure that his comments are passed on. He will be aware that we announced in the Queen's Speech on 26 November our intention to bring forward a civil partnership Bill. I will ensure that his comments are taken forward.
	The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, who described himself as an addict, is a good example of someone who recognises the importance of marriage and I will pay regard to his comments about education as I continue my remarks.
	The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, talked about the need to engage parents. That is a critical part of the agenda, and one we have neglected in terms of our development and thinking, which I am sure we will be able to debate more fully. The right reverent Prelate the Bishop of Oxford talked interestingly about the good value for money, with which I agree, that marriage brings. But there is also the recognition of marriage and relationship support and the role and work of the voluntary sector in particular. The right reverent Prelate asked me how we are going to make clear what we are doing in relation to the regulatory reform order on registrars. We are considering the consultation responses and we are putting proposals before Parliament to be in place before the Summer Recess.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, reminded us of the extended families and the work of Michael Young, taking us through the changes that have taken place since the 1950s and the vast range of experience that we now have of family relationships. She spoke also in the context of her own experience.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Strange, spoke with emotion of what we all yearn for in marriage—that one place, the total support, the caring for each other, and the need to instil those values in our children. I offer her good luck when the 65 children come to the Palace of Westminster next week.
	The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester spoke of the importance of the contribution of those outside government, in particular better teaching about marriage, preparation for marriage and support for victims of relationship breakdowns. I echo his sentiments in all of those areas.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, brings support from the Benches of the Liberal Democrats to the work we are doing on supporting children and recognises the role of marriage within that. The noble Baroness talked about the quality of marriage, which is critical. I, too, am interested in what is happening in countries such as Sweden. HomeStart is an interesting example of what is happening here and, in a sense, emulates what is happening in Sweden.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, raised in particular the difficulties for children in adapting to changes that happen in their life when there is a breakdown and the critical importance of stability. I could not agree more.
	It is always an indication of the importance of the subject when one has the breadth of debate that we have had today. In response, I want to set out the Government's strong commitment to supporting our children and families. As the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, said, strong families are at the heart of our strong communities. Successful and confident parenting is essential if we are to create healthy families. We know the importance of good parenting and good family relationships to children's chances of success in later life. As I said, the Government believe that marriage is the surest foundation for raising children and it remains the choice of the majority of people in Britain.
	Our aim is to make the support available for parents and carers at the heart of our approach to improving outcomes for children and of developing more and better universal services open to all families as and when they need it.
	As the right reverend Prelates the Bishop of Oxford and the Bishop of Leicester said, it is important. I hope that this investment, in combination with the integration of a wide range of family support services, will go some way towards widening access to support and removing the stigma of seeking help.
	We recognise that parents are the most important influence on children and young people. Parenting, as noble Lords have indicated, can be challenging and the majority of parents want help at some stage. By enabling parents to access early support and deal with problems before they become acute we can improve outcomes. I agree wholeheartedly with the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, about the need to involve parents in our discussions. Work is under way across the department to bring together our work with parents in the broadest sense, and to enable us to consult and discuss such issues more fully with them.
	We share the belief that has been expressed in your Lordships' House, as the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, said, that stability in a couple's relationship is the best foundation for raising children and protecting them from the wide range of risks and negative outcomes. We hope that by bringing together in one department, the Department for Education and Skills, responsibility for policy and services for children, young people and their families, the Government should now be able to respond more easily to the needs of children and families in providing appropriate, accessible and timely support at all of the key stages in the lives of families.
	The Moving Forward Together strategy report for marriage and relationship support recommended supporting couples at times of challenge and crisis. Convinced by the evidence, leading researchers are now moving beyond the basic question of whether parents and their relationship affect their children's well-being, to questions about interventions and the impact they have on families as a whole and children in particular. For example, in a study by One Plus One, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, the birth of the first child, while of course a time of great joy, can also be challenging. Existing research indicates an emerging trend that many couples report a drop in marital satisfaction upon the birth of their first baby. So, initiatives such as Brief Encounters, which trains and equips health visitors and midwives with the necessary skills to identify potential relationship problems during their statutory home visits—and act as a referral route to enable parents to access a range of support services at that early stage—are critically important in the support that we provide for families.
	We recognise that the missing link in our preventive policies has been a serious focus on supporting families, relationships, carers and parents. We want to shift the balance towards prevention, through tackling child poverty, improving the work in early years' education and childcare, raising school standards and supporting families and parents. We know, as the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, said, that family relationships and parenting have a critical influence on educational potential and increasing a child's health chances.
	But not enough attention has been paid to how the state, working with the voluntary sector—who are critical partners—can support families and parents. So, in the Green Paper Every Child Matters and our other work we have set out our objectives to ensure that every child can reach its potential, to build on the progress we have made and identify the main areas for further action to support our children.
	We know that if family breakdown does occur it can have pervasive ill effects on children as well as having an impact on the wider family. It is a major cause of poverty, as noble Lords have said, inequality, ill health, and social exclusion. The outcomes for children who have experienced disruption and multiple family structures are generally worse than for those who live continuously with a lone parent or a stepfamily. We know that at least one in three children will go through parental separation before the age of 16. We also know that most of them will go through a period of great unhappiness. Many experience low self-esteem, behaviour problems and loss of contact with the extended family.
	We also know that children can be helped by good communication with both parents and, fortunately, that both can be enabled to settle back into a normal pattern of development. We also know that there are different approaches to conflict and the extent to which it is resolved; and that those different approaches can have different outcomes for children. We know as well that persistent and intense marital conflict can erode good parenting. It therefore makes sense to help and support couples to promote stability in their relationship. However, the targeting of that support must continue to recognise the choice that couples make about whether they marry.
	I was delighted when the Chancellor announced today a 17 per cent increase in the Budget for the Sure Start programme between now and 2008 and I was pleased that the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, mentioned that. It is at the heart of our strategy to support families and to give children, particularly those from disadvantaged communities, the best possible start in life. Its principles underpin the Green Paper. The combination of health, family and parenting support with early education and childcare is critical. We have 524 Sure Start programmes that touch the lives of 400,000 children under 4 years old and reach about a third of children living in poverty.
	All of those programmes provide an element of parenting support. The nature of that support is determined by local needs—and rightly so. It includes drop-in sessions for families, parenting courses that have proved hugely popular, and specific support for fathers—a point raised by both the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne. We intend to build on that commitment by extending family support through our children's centre programme and through extended schools. Children's centres provide that combination of family, education and health support, accessible in a "one-stop" way, and extended schools enable, in partnership with other services, support for families in a site that is recognised as a place of education and where children can receive those benefits.
	We recognise that the importance of that work is in the impact it can have in what happens to our children. Most parents strive to do the best for their children, but how they do that will depend partly on their own experiences. So it is important that we are there to give them that support when they need it. We know how important that is for children's life chances. It is perhaps summed up by Professor De Forges' work, commissioned by my department, which showed that good parenting in the home can make over a 10 per cent difference to children's outcomes at school. So programmes like Sure Start are critical.
	Regarding the references to what happens in Sweden, and references by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, to the HomeStart programme, noble Lords will know that we have outlined our intention to roll out nationally home visiting support to one in 50 families. The HomeStart programme particularly enables families with young children to receive that vital support at the beginning—which noble Lords have described as the joy of new parenting, which also brings challenges. The programme enables us to offer support to families who need it. That will be important.
	I know that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has not come across parenting classes, but yesterday I received a leaflet from my children's school inviting me as a parent to go to parenting classes if I so wished. Although we are parents of teenagers, I may yet take it up. Having met the noble Lord's beautiful daughter, I suspect that she is teaching him everything he needs to know about parenting.
	Both right reverend Prelates, the Bishop of Oxford and the Bishop of Leicester, talked about the voluntary sector and the need to engage other partners in our work. I believe that it is critical that we engage and offer direct support for the voluntary sector. We are establishing a framework to do that more efficiently and to recognise that we also need to facilitate public education, through best practice, in our work with the voluntary sector. Most organisations with which I have had the privilege to work recognise how important it is to work in partnership with us and to offer those special services to families.
	In addition to Sure Start, we are providing funding through a number of grant programmes such as Family Support and the Parenting Fund. While we are debating this matter, the families division within the department is looking at the wider funding programme that we need to put in place to ensure greater cohesion and effective rollout of family related funds for the future.
	Organisations such as Parentline Plus, Relate, HomeStart, Fathers Direct, 2as1 and the Asian Family Counselling Services work in partnership with government on evidence-based policy as well as providing family and relationship support services at a national and local level. That is critical to the work that we want to do.
	Noble Lords referred to the importance of recognising the issues that concern our lone parents, many of whom are alone not by choice but by circumstance. They need help to enable them to support their families financially through work, where that is the right thing to do; they need support in childcare; and they also need help to enable them to get out of poverty, where so many of them are.
	However, we also recognise that children are better in a stable, loving relationship with one parent than in an unhappy, chaotic or possibly violent relationship. That point was made clear by a number of noble Lords. We should not penalise such children and families; we should support them. Under no circumstances should we make any child feel that his relationship is inferior, nor make any parent feel guilty.
	Noble Lords raised the issue of fathers, and I have referred to that. It is critical that we engage fathers, particularly at a time when we see families changing and when fathers may not necessarily feel so sure about their role. Again, an important part of the Sure Start programme is engaging fathers.
	The noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, talked about the role of schools and education. I agree with what they said. I am pleased that the noble Lord likes the website and I shall feed back that information. It is important that the curriculum reflects people, and I believe that it does. No doubt we shall engage in further discussions on that topic. I was particularly pleased that the noble Lord referred to mentors and the critical importance of role models. We know that to be very important in many of our schools where we have learning mentors. It is important that some boys have the role model of an adult male, who is perhaps the only role model that they have in their lives.
	The noble Lords, Lord Northbourne and Lord Lucas, and the noble Baroness, Lady Seccombe, talked about taxation. I acknowledge the replacement of the married couples' tax allowance with the child tax credit and the working families' tax credit, which are marriage blind. But the focus of these new tax arrangements is on tackling child poverty. We consider that to be critical, and it is more important than discriminating against children because of the marital status of their parents. As a government, we want to tackle social exclusion across all families. However, there continue to be substantial tax advantages for married couples in capital provisions and in death and inheritance arrangements. Those do not directly benefit children but they are a tangible recognition of the support of the state for married couples.
	In conclusion, I want to make a few points on which I believe we all agree. We are all committed to supporting all children and all families, and we share the view that promoting family stability is essential if we are to achieve a better outcome for families and children. I hope that, having heard about some of the things that we are undertaking, noble Lords will agree that we are attempting to ensure the provision of better support.
	We know that parents and families have a critical influence on a child's life and life chances and that, where children grow up in stable, happy family units, they usually do better in life. We agree that marriage can act as a bedrock for many families but, increasingly today, families take many forms: single-parent families; same-sex families; stepfamilies; and blended families. Children who grow up in all such stable, healthy families, enjoying the love and support of a committed parent or parents, thrive.
	We are committed to supporting marriage but we are committed, too, to supporting all parents in building and maintaining stable relationships and a stable family life. We remain committed to saving marriages which can be saved but, where a marriage has irretrievably broken down, we feel that the best way forward is to support parents in establishing a good, ongoing relationship between themselves and their children.
	Families are all different, whatever form they take, and their need for support varies, too. By bringing together into one department the different responsibilities for policies relating to services for children and young people and their families and, more importantly, by joining up those services on the ground, we believe that we shall be able to respond more effectively. We recognise the importance of our voluntary sector partners. We remain committed to investing in the voluntary sector, which remains an important and integral partner in our support for families.
	We know that families and parents want the best for their children. Our job is to find the right support at the right time and in the right way. I hope that the work that I have explained this afternoon will help us all to be better able to support our couples, our children and our families and to recognise the importance of marriage.

Lord Northbourne: My Lords, what a joy it is to have a Minister who can speak with so much enthusiasm and genuine commitment on this issue, and what a joy it is to have a government who have done so much in this area. I believe that I have about two minutes in which to speak. I can see noble Lords who are to take part in the next debate watching me with eagle eyes, but I want briefly to make two points.
	First, what has emerged from this debate is that we are talking about all kinds of different things when we talk about committed relationships, stable relationships and quality relationships and, in particular, when we talk about cohabitation. Cohabitation covers a whole spectrum. It may be worthwhile to think a little more carefully and to try to define what is and is not good for children, just as, if I may say, I have done in relation to marriage. If I may make so bold as to correct the noble Baroness, I am not talking about promoting marriage; I am talking about promoting healthy marriage, which is different. That is what I should like to see the Government do more of—if that is a legitimate use of the English language.
	This debate is not about a nanny state and it is not about moralising; it is about the nation's future. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

Library Service

Lord Harrison: rose to call attention to the public library service of the United Kingdom and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport's publication, A Framework for the Future; and to move for Papers.
	My Lords, in opening this debate, I declare myself a lifelong supporter of the British public library system and a former chair of Cheshire County Council's libraries' committee. A number of my immediate family work, and have worked, in libraries.
	I feel that I was almost brought up in my local library, Bury Knowle Library in Headington, Oxford, and in the old City Central Library in Blue Boar Street. I well remember the day in the 1950s when, as a callow 12 year-old, I received my first ever inter-library loan—a copy of the mammoth A History of Chess by HJR Murray. This exotic volume had come from sunnier climes—well, from Southampton Central Library, to be precise—but, to me, its very arrival betokened an undiscovered world of mystery, romance and learning. I had begun down the path taken years before by Virginia Woolf, of,
	"ransacking public libraries [to] find them full of sunk treasure".
	Many of us must have had that experience when young and, most especially, when the local library represented the major source of books in the family home, as it did to me. Today, public libraries are still held in high esteem by the public, but they are almost wholly ignored by politicians other than as venues for surgeries—a service I prized as a councillor and an MEP. Indeed, I yearn for the day when the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition at Prime Minister's Question Time throw the book at each other over the quality and funding of the public library service.
	In today's Britain, when improving public services is the current catchword of party politics, our libraries are left largely speechless. Indeed, today's debate in the Lords is the first that we have had on the subject for many years, and in the other place only one such abbreviated debate has taken place in the recent past.
	That is more the pity, given that this is the first government in decades to invest new moneys in the libraries, as exemplified by the outstanding People's Network programme of furnishing all our public libraries with on-line facilities and also by the publication last year of the ground-breaking A Framework for the Future, which gives new direction to a public service which has survived rather than marched into the 21st century. I very much welcome the contribution that will come from my noble friend Lady Blackstone, who pioneered A Framework for the Future. I hope that today's debate can help the process of raising the profile of Britain's most used and most loved public service.
	The Audit Commission's recent report on public libraries highlights some of the stagnation that has silently overtaken our libraries and which A Framework for the Future seeks to address. It points to deficiencies in libraries' traditional roles: book funds have diminished by some 33 per cent over the past 12 years; loans are down 23 per cent and visits by 17 per cent; and the number of libraries that remain open longer than 30 hours a week has declined by 9 per cent. Too many of our current libraries are in old buildings, poorly furbished and often wrongly sited to meet today's mobile populations.
	Of course, some of those problems can be resolved by injections of cash into councils' budgets which have seen increases both in central funding and in centrally imposed new responsibilities and targets. A better use of current resources to refocus our libraries on serving current needs can also be beneficial. I give an example. At the moment certain categories of books, like cult and fantasy fiction, gay and lesbian books and 20th century American and world literature are neglected in favour of other, sometimes more traditional categories that are declining in popularity. Likewise, too many libraries fail to buy sufficient copies of regularly issued books through lack of book funds and perhaps through a fear of being accused of dumbing down by concentrating on bestsellers. But surely the customer should be king.
	With regard to opening hours, too often they reflect past life and work patterns. Staff should be flexible to the idea that large libraries in the hearts of towns and cities, for instance, should open on a Sunday, now a traditional shopping day, as Wednesday was once early closing day. Sometimes we must take the book to the customer, not the other way round.
	In recent years there has been a renaissance in building new libraries of considerable architectural merit and utility. Such new designs get closer to the customer and are attractive both inside and out. But not all is well. My own 1984 Chester City library is an attractive, if small, library of modern design, incorporating the charming older façade of the former Westminster coachworks. I fear that its replacement, as Chester undergoes significant retail redevelopment, will rejoice in modernised facilities, but I regret its loss of a groundfloor window on the world as its main facilities are posted upstairs, out of sight and hence out of mind.
	We middle-class users too readily forget that the 30 per cent of our fellow citizens who never use libraries find them all too often in buildings that are both inaccessible and forbidding. I have often wondered too why the insides of our libraries are not more welcoming to the public. Coffee bars can add to the general welcome, without disturbing the peace, if wisely located; and toilets should be a facility offered, not concealed from the public. Truly, we need our libraries to spend a penny or two on satisfying the customer.
	Many staff perform with dedication the pivotal role of linking borrower to the borrowed in a job which is neither well paid nor well regarded, nor replete with opportunities for promotion. Some reform is needed here, too, so that, for instance, a culture of floor-walking by staff can bring their skills closer to the customer, skills, as Charles Medawar describes, which are underestimated and largely underemployed. Commensurately, greater use of self-issue can free librarians from their rubberstamping role to one of active engagement with the borrowers, a plus for both parties.
	I also endorse the growing practice of librarian job swaps which help to spread the adoption of best practice. But all this needs greater investment in time and energy to help to propel the library service into the 21st century. I invite my noble friend to suggest how the Government might deploy their admirable philosophy of coupling reform with public investment to achieve those aims.
	So far I have concentrated on reinvigorating the traditional role of promoting books and reading, but I would like to touch on other themes of A Framework for the Future, including the People's Network, which, alongside learndirect, helps to promote learning and the expansion of digital citizenship. Indeed, the People's Network, an inspired initiative, for which we must thank my noble friend Lord Evans of Temple Guiting, illustrates the Government's desire to use the library service to support and to supplement other government and local authority objectives, including the promotion of education and gaining jobs. For those members of the community hitherto excluded, the network has found jobs for some 8,000 people, some 27 per cent of whom have never before used the Internet. But I am unclear about the future funding and expansion of this and other clearly successful initiatives, whose cost-effectiveness must be unparalleled across the gamut of the public services, sponsored by the Government. Perhaps my noble friend will reassure us.
	In preparing for this contribution I have been impressed with the arguments for concentrating on the young, indeed sometimes the very young, to break the impoverishing cycle which sees those excluded from the worlds of learning, skills and meaningful employment rearing the next generation, similarly bereft and excluded. That libraries have a unique role here has been revealed by the success of the Bookstart scheme, piloted in Birmingham in the 1990s and unusually supported privately by Sainsbury's supermarket chain. Its efficacy is illustrated not only by its beneficial effect on very young children's preparation for formal school, but also by the fact that their parents, often from target social classes D and E, are themselves drawn into the libraries and hence into the world of learning.
	The issue of book packs, through local health visitors, is particularly innovative and successful and illustrates the benefits of joined-up government. It would be helpful to learn from my noble friend what steps are being taken to secure enduring funding for those cheap but cheerful and effective initiatives. Indeed, what other initiatives might be fostered by better liaison with national, but more especially, local businesses? My instinct is that currently, despite some sporadic green shoots of enterprise, the worlds of business and library services are still ships passing in the night.
	Similarly that is the case with libraries and the tourism industry. I am one of those sad people who finds libraries tourist attractions. I fondly remember visits to the New York public library and the Harry E Widener library at Harvard. There are practical reasons why tourism and libraries should team up, if only to dispense tourism literature better—but more could be done.
	I am told that in Canada libraries encourage tourists to use their e-mail and Internet facilities to stay in touch with home—simple but effective. That leads me to another missed opportunity for our libraries. They advertise everyone else, but themselves. Libraries, so often the notice board of their local community, signally fail to market themselves in the high street. I am heartened by the experiment in Luton whereby local cinemas collude with the library authorities to advertise to the young people streaming through the doors of local cinemas that there is another world of fantasy, fact and fiction down the road: their local library. Our public libraries must be nimble in spotting where they can collaborate with and buttress other public services. Education and tourism are but two examples. The Prison Service is a third, where good dynamic libraries are the touchstone for rehabilitating prisoners.
	The first door on which to knock is surely that of the wealth of other library providers found in our towns and cities up and down the land. I do not simply mean college and university libraries. What about private libraries and those attached to business and industry? They should also be brought in. Britain should become a mosaic of a single library service, not a maze of separating libraries where high hedges separate treasures that can be shared by us all.
	In this respect, I am particularly pleased to learn of the British Library's recent receipt of £2.4 million from the Treasury's "Invest to Save the Budget" scheme, helping the British Library to respond to its yearly 160,000 requests from local libraries. As welcome is its involvement with local libraries in Newcastle, Birmingham and Liverpool to provide specialist material for a touring football exhibition aimed at football fans young and old, whose current reading may be limited to fanzines and football programmes.
	In promoting the spread of best practice in modern libraries, we should share experiences with our European neighbours and Commonwealth colleagues. I am not sure whether this is done at anything other than anecdotal level. I understand that in Belgium it is practice to provide post boxes to return borrowed items outside libraries when they are closed. That reminds me of the new Norfolk and Norwich Millennium Library, which provides in its lobby a fast book service for the borrower in a hurry, again matching the service to the customers' lifestyles.
	I would like to put some concluding questions to my noble friend. As this is Budget day, I invite the Minister to suggest to his friend the Chancellor that he make a significant hike in the funding of our public libraries at his next spending review. Spending currently stands at some £800 million. Is it really beyond the wit of the Treasury to round that figure up to £1 billion, given the cost-effectiveness of libraries and their major contribution to other government policies? Will my noble friend also approach the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister—which has a slightly confusing relationship with DCMS in respect of responsibilities for libraries—and suggest that it is intolerable to have so wide a variation in local library service spending? Some authorities spend a mere £1 per head of population, and others £2.50, which is two and a half times as much. Is it not time to expand the local authorities' statutory duty to run a library service and to hypothecate a percentage of councils' budgets to their libraries?
	Can my noble friend help local councils to do a more effective job in overseeing the library service by establishing an "Oflib", or "Ofbook", tasked to inspect our libraries on a rolling basis? Incidentally, do the Government believe that the 21 standards that they set out four years ago as benchmarks for an improved public library service have been met? I am informed by one local authority that only two of the original 21 can be said to have been fulfilled.
	In conclusion, I remind the House that the ancient library at Thebes had inscribed over its portal its role as "the medicine chest of the soul". Our public libraries are far from expiring, but they need some remedial first aid to help them and us to minister to our people in the coming century. I hope that the Government agree. I beg to move for Papers.

Baroness Blackstone: My Lords, I am extremely grateful to my noble friend Lord Harrison for introducing this debate on public libraries. I am only sorry that there are so few speakers in this debate. I know that it is Budget day, but nevertheless public libraries deserve something better than this from your Lordships' House.
	I am speaking in this debate to reconfirm my strong commitment to sustaining a strong public library system. Public libraries should be at the centre of all of our communities. They must be at the centre of our communities in promoting reading, but there are other things too that they can and should do. I will say more about those later.
	As the Minister for the Arts, I was delighted to discover that public libraries were part of my remit. I was proud to have that responsibility for two years. I discovered that they had had far too little attention from government for some time. Perhaps the more glamorous areas in the arts, such as museums, were taking precedence. Perhaps public libraries had been taken for granted for far too long. Perhaps, as my noble friend Lord Harrison said, expenditure on public libraries is not under the control of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and there is a slightly uncomfortable split responsibility between the DCMS and the ODPM.
	Having discovered that they were part of my remit, I then went on a wonderful voyage of discovery through visits to public libraries, including the library in Chester that my noble friend played such a big part in developing back in the 1980s. I went to conferences, and I read about libraries. I then decided that it was sensible to set up a series of seminars in the DCMS, bringing in experts from a variety of different fields to consider the key issues in ensuring that our public library service should be as good as it possibly could be. I am grateful for what my noble friend just said about my part in developing A Framework for the Future, but it really was a team effort. I want to express my gratitude to the many participants in the process, of which those seminars were a key part. What A Framework for the Future tries to do is provide a national vision as to why libraries matter and to set out what they should do. I also wanted to start a debate on how to improve them. I wanted them to have greater visibility, and I wanted to promote their importance, although I do not seem to have had a great deal of effect in the House of Lords.
	The general public has an enormously high regard for libraries. Some 60 per cent of the population are members; 90 per cent think that libraries provide a valuable service to local communities; and 90 per cent of 16 to 24 year-olds share that view. This is a very high level of support for a public service, and it is a tribute to the dedication of many of those who work in libraries. In the light of this, one might ask whether anything needs to be done about libraries. My answer is a resounding, "Yes". The library service is not just one service; there are 149 different library services in England, and they are all autonomous, so it is a fragmented service. What is on offer varies greatly, and so do standards in our public library system. There are a great deal of gains from that autonomy and variety. It allows for innovation; it allows different means of delivery in different kinds of communities. However, there are also benefits from shared aspirations and high standards across authorities rather than huge disparities from place to place in the benefits that public libraries provide.
	Moreover, the ways in which libraries are being used have changed, and we must take this into account. Libraries must be aware of this, and they must adjust to it. Between 1992 and 2002, library visits dropped by 17 per cent, and book loans dropped by the remarkable figure of one quarter, which is a cause for concern. Library book issues went down, whereas book sales went up. That need not in any way spell the demise of public libraries—certainly not. As my noble friend has already said, libraries are not just about book loans, although that will always be an important function of libraries. We must provide books that people want to read, and we must do so in a cost-effective way that reflects contemporary needs. To give an example, renewals should be possible through a 24-hour telephone service. It should not be necessary for people to carry large bags of books back to the library to renew them.
	Libraries are about other things than supporting reading for pleasure, which is the greatest of all pleasures in my view, for at least many people. They are about providing information, and they are a repository of information of all kinds. In the digital age, no public library should be unable to help people to find the information that they need. As my noble friend has already mentioned, one of the valuable services that the British Library provides to the public library system is the supply of documents remotely. This is being modernised by a Treasury grant, as my noble friend said. That certainly enhances the information services that libraries can provide. A very important part of the job of public libraries is to enhance learning and support the work of schools and colleges.
	Anybody who has been into a children's library on a day when there are a couple of primary school classes there cannot but help to find that an enjoyable experience. Every primary school should be instilling in children the habit of reading. Every primary school should regularly be taking its classes into children's libraries. I am afraid that is not always the case. Similarly, every secondary school should be encouraging its pupils to use their local libraries for project work, which is true for FE colleges, too. Even before school begins, toddlers should, wherever they live, be in reach of a public library for story-telling sessions and benefit from services such as toy libraries, which I have seen in a number of public libraries but not in all of them. What discussions has my noble friend the Minister had with the DfES and his colleagues there to promote more effectively schools' use of public libraries?
	Of course, learning in libraries is not just about young people. It is also about life-long learning. One of the recent success stories, as my noble friend mentioned, has been the People's Network, and the lottery grant which was provided to link up all libraries to the web has been immensely successful. That has been achieved. Associated with that are exciting programmes for IT training in libraries for adults, especially for elderly people, sometimes in partnership with learndirect. Again I have a couple of questions I want to put to my noble friend the Minister. I do not know whether any data have been collected on how far links with learndirect are leading to expanded provision in public libraries for people to acquire basic skills. Libraries, of course, can and should be helping the Government to reach their overall goal of Internet access for everyone.
	My second question concerns the end of the NOF money and builds on what my noble friend has already asked. It has been said that the library service will run into difficulties in sustaining free Internet-connected services once that money dries up. I wonder whether my noble friend the Minister thinks that is a legitimate worry, and if so what plans the Government have to intervene.
	As well as promoting learning, public libraries have a very important role in promoting social cohesion and a sense of pride in a local community. It is one of the few free community spaces still available. Anyone can go into a library; they can come off the street and benefit from what libraries have to offer. That space should be used imaginatively. It ought to be available for art exhibitions by local members of the community; for the work of young people in secondary schools or FE colleges who have taken part in a poetry competition—their poems should be up on the walls. There are many other ways in which we can use space in our local libraries. Perhaps it is relevant to say on Budget day that one library I visited had invited the Inland Revenue to come in and provide regular sessions for people who needed advice on how to fill in their tax forms. A little bit of that could be extended to other advisory services and perhaps across the country in other library services. Some libraries provide music clubs for young people. I could go on: there are so many uses for this space in buildings which should be used to their maximum by the local community.
	One of the most pressing tasks for libraries is to reach out to those who do not use them, such as people who are likely to be socially excluded from many other areas of life. That requires libraries to undertake good outreach work, particularly in deprived inner city neighbourhoods—libraries should go into housing estates—but also in cut-off rural areas, or go to those who are in residential care or to people who are housebound.
	Making libraries welcoming, warm and attractive places is important, as is ensuring that they are open at times that people want to use them. That means that they have to be open at the weekends, on both Saturdays and Sundays. But good buildings that are in the right place and which are easily accessible are enormously important. If your library building is run down, depressing and in an area hard to reach by public transport, that does not help to make it accessible to the maximum number of people. There are many new libraries in beautiful buildings, such as Norwich, Bournemouth and Peckham—just a few examples of libraries that have a great buzz about them.
	Anyone who says that one cannot make inroads in encouraging more people to use libraries should look at what has happened at Tower Hamlets. That authority found that only 15 per cent of its residents were regular users. By taking the initiative to develop what it called idea stores, and turning around 100 year-old libraries—refurbishing them, making them cheerful and providing cafes and opportunities to use the web—they have had a trebling in their use. Issues of books are up by over 60 per cent.
	Much of that is set out in Framework for the Future, but that was not an action plan—it was a vision of what public libraries should be like. In order to help make this vision a reality, we appointed a new advisory council on libraries. What advice has that group provided my noble friend with so far and what action has he been able to take as a result? Clearly there is an important role for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister in funding local authorities adequately. Also important are the decisions made by local authorities on how to spend the funding they receive. Will the Minister reassure us that the reduced weighting of libraries as an indicator for CPAs will not be allowed to result in a lower priority for public libraries in local authorities? Has he yet been able to use his persuasive powers to talk to local authority chief executives and leaders? If he has not yet, I hope he will do so soon.
	The other important issue is how to drive up standards across the public library service. Our best libraries are superb; our worst are pretty miserable places. At one time I thought that inspection was the answer, but on reflection I think that is too heavy handed and too costly; local government is already over-regulated and over-inspected. Has the Minister been able to develop a scheme to get the best authorities to work with weaker library authorities in their own region? Can he tell us whether any funding might be made available to bring this about? I am sure that he would agree that that approach ought to be developed.
	When we published A Framework for the Future we agreed that annual library plans were over-complex, over-demanding and encouraged a tick-box mentality. We decided that much simpler public library position statements should be asked for instead. These position statements have now been analysed and I hope that my noble friend will say something about what he draws from them and what action is required following this analysis.
	I end by saying that free public libraries were invented in the 19th century. They flourished in most of the 20th century, but there has been some under-investment and lack of a public profile for them in the 1980s and 1990s. That has meant that there is a danger that they might start to decline and end up on a downward slope that would be hard to climb up again. In the 21st century, libraries must reinvent themselves to meet the expectations of a different era to the time of Andrew Carnegie. They need political and financial support, but, above all, they need energy, drive and inventiveness from those who run them and work in them. We must recruit the best people to do the job. If that is done and a framework is established that will reward excellence and reinvigorate the dull and the mediocre with good leadership where it counts, our public library system can be the envy of the world.

Viscount Falkland: My Lords, we must thank the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, and congratulate him on his good fortune in securing this debate. We commiserate with him, of course, in so far as he has attracted few speakers. I know not whether that is due to the Budget or to Cheltenham races. Nevertheless, the noble Lord has had the good fortune to hear from one of the greatest experts on the matter, the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone. I have the honour and rather fearful duty of following the noble Baroness in the debate. She has covered many of the points.
	It has always been my view—shared, I think, by many in the House—that the library system, in common with our museum and gallery service, must either modernise or die. Both are going about the business of trying to modernise. The library system has been more successful than any of us could have hoped. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, that we owe a lot to the fact that, in the short time for which she was Minister, we had in the noble Baroness a fervent supporter of literature and reading. If she will forgive me, I will pick out a few words from her launch of A Framework for the Future. She said:
	"Great literature is, without question, our country's greatest gift to the world's cultural heritage, and libraries are the means by which we share and celebrate it. Reading is essential to modern life, and a major source of pleasure for millions".
	How right she was. How right that must now seem to a larger number of people than when she said it.
	We have had some very good initiatives. The modernisation that is taking place includes the huge success of the People's Network. There are now 32,000 terminals in libraries throughout the country, funded by the New Opportunities Fund, which I am glad to have the opportunity of praising. There have been other initiatives, not least BBC2's recent initiative, "The Big Read". One might be sniffy about attempts of that kind to promote cultural activities, but it was enormously successful. The list of books to which the public attached some importance was somewhat limited, but, nevertheless, the programme attracted a great deal of enthusiasm and provoked a great deal of interest among the public at large in buying books again, particularly backlist literature. As your Lordships know, backlist literature is always vulnerable to the increasingly competitive world of publishing, where the sharpened focus on new titles means that it is always competing with backlist literature. Forty per cent of the fiction market has, in recent years, been backlist literature, but it is a tough battle.
	It is not surprising that the lists that young people create of their preferred reading are limited to quite recent works. I was fortunate enough—and unfortunate, I suppose—to have a fairly peripatetic early childhood because of the war and because I was an only child. I spent a lot of time on my own. The other day, my noble friend Lord Thomson of Monifieth, who was giving a talk at a birthday party in the Cholmondeley Room, mentioned a book of which, he said, no one would have heard. I had a slight flush of pleasure when I realised that it was, in fact, a book that had set me off reading seriously at the age of seven: WW Jacobs's collection of sea stories, Many Cargoes. I was so enthusiastic about that book, although my noble friend was right to say that it was now completely unfashionable. I do not think that young readers are likely to have heard of WW Jacobs. However, initiatives such as "The Big Read" will encourage such interest.
	Reading, of course, is for pleasure, in the sense in which I understood the noble Baroness's remarks in the introduction to A Framework for the Future. It is so important that people should read for pleasure, not least because they can talk about it afterwards with their friends. For a while, television took over from reading, and we all disliked its effect on reading. Now, television has reversed the situation and actually encourages people to read. There is now less of a gap between the world of reading for pleasure and watching television. When we come to consider the charter of the BBC and its role as a public service broadcaster, the BBC's role as a supporter of reading and literature will be an important part of the debates that will take place in your Lordships' House and in the other place.
	I mentioned my peripatetic childhood. I went on to read all kinds of authors who did not figure in the lists produced after "The Big Read". Perhaps, I will be permitted the luxury of mentioning one or two. Graham Greene is, of course, still on the main lists. He is an important author for all kinds of reasons, not least because his work creates a great deal of discussion. George Orwell is still on the main lists. Aldous Huxley and DH Lawrence, who used to be seen as writers for people going through their adolescence, have almost disappeared. Others whom I like, such as Forster and others, are still there but are, seemingly, rather dated to the younger generation. The women authors that I liked when I was at school—Pamela Hansford Johnson, Pamela Frankau, Rosamund Lehmann and others—seem to have disappeared completely, although a very good biography of Rosamund Lehmann was published recently, and I recommend it to others. It is rather like a book group now; one indulges oneself in telling fellow members of the group what one likes. I would not like to leave the Chamber without mentioning a minor master, Patrick Hamilton, who wrote just after the war. His psychological novels based in seedy Brighton and London were minor masterpieces, if not major masterpieces. He has disappeared to some extent, and his plays—Rope and Gaslight—are not often seen, because of the disappearance of the repertory companies.
	Happy to have got that off the page to your Lordships, I must say that it is important for libraries to introduce people to translations. Introducing readers to translated authors such as Chekhov or Tolstoy or to French authors, who are somewhat different and can be difficult to translate, encourages the learning of languages and interest in other cultures. That is an important function of libraries.
	I am a little dismayed by the figures that were quoted. The noble Baroness quoted some figures. It is dismaying that recent statistics that I have seen show that only 9.6 per cent of the amount spent by libraries is spent on new books. There may be a good reason for that, and the Minister may be able to cheer me up on that point. It may not be such a significantly low figure as I take it to be.
	The modern side of making computers and IT technology available to people is very important. But such technology is quite expensive and the certainty of core funding is, of course, always important. There is always a doubt about that in all areas of the arts. The continuity of core funding and the reassurance that it gives is absolutely vital. I hope that the noble Lord will be able to say a few words about that.
	Children are taking to books now. I am very encouraged. I have an 11 year-old who has become an avid reader thanks to JK Rowling and Anthony Horowitz, two of the leading children's writers. He has become, thanks to computers, a dedicated writer as well. I do not know where he gets this from. I am far too lazy to do that, although I have always been interested in writing. He also illustrates them, so there must be something right going on in the world which prompts children to take these kinds of steps forward.
	Broadcasting and literature are now much closer friends and I am hoping that this impetus will continue. I do not know whether noble Lords are aware of it but, for what I think is the first time ever, there is an All-Party Book Group, which is very encouraging. I went to its inaugural meeting and it was very interesting. I am pleased to see the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, who is the inspirer of that book group, on the Benches behind me. I thought that was a wonderful initiative. I was told by a very prominent member the next day, "You must be careful about book groups. You will find that inevitably the majority of regular attendees will be women. They will like to talk about books, in particular about their frustrated ambitions to be writers". I said "Oh no, no! That won't happen in the Houses of Parliament". We shall see, but I am quite sure the noble Baroness will give us a programme which will be varied and stimulating, and navel-gazing will be kept to a minimum. On the first meeting of her group there was such enthusiasm among the small group that I would encourage other noble Lords, who may not be aware of it, to attend regularly.
	That is all I have to say, except that I would select one quotation from the reactions to A Framework for the future, which I think hit the nail on the head. It is an extract from the remarks of the Poet Laureate, when he said that libraries,
	"are vital to the intellectual health of the nation, and as such, should be properly funded, developed and cherished".
	I hope the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, will give us some hope that that will the case.

Lord Luke: My Lords, I very much welcome this debate and congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, on giving us the opportunity to assess the impact of this DCMS publication, Framework for the future. As noble Lords know, this report was actually published over a year ago. The noble Lord, Lord Harrison, said that there had not been any debates about libraries since then, but in fact there was a debate about facilities in public libraries for those who have difficulties accessing books last June. I shall come to that in a minute.
	There has also been the publication, yesterday, of library statistics since the last annual appraisal on 20 February 2003. These statistics show, once again, that this Government's keenness about targets really does not work. For instance, out of the 18 public library standards targets set by DCMS, only two were met by all libraries across the country. These statistics also show that, far from increasing library usage, the number of people visiting libraries seems to have been decreasing since the standards were introduced.
	What is the reason for this rather depressing situation? Like the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, I certainly do not believe that the library system is about to collapse. I wonder, however, whether opening hours do not suit as many people returning from work as they might? Or is it that libraries do not carry enough of the kind of facilities, which have been mentioned by several noble Lords, that the general public are now looking for?
	The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has a statutory responsibility to promote the development of the public library service under the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964, and to ensure that local authorities provide a
	"comprehensive and efficient"
	library service. The public library service is administered by local authorities and funded through what was once the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions. Would the Minister tell me why it is that the public library service is the responsibility of the DCMS, but it appears that the funding of the service is the responsibility of a different department? Is this not illogical?
	When the new public library standards were issued in April 2001, it was stated that these standards would be reviewed from time to time, partly to ensure that the administrative burden placed on local authorities required to achieve these standards does not become disproportionate. As I have already said, it appears that these standards are not working. Is this because the administrative burden is, perhaps, excessive?
	The DCMS publish an appraisal of the annual library plan, as submitted by each library authority, every year. This appraisal forms a key planning tool, and facilitates the assessment of each authority's performance against locally set standards and targets. Would the Minster explain why an annual appraisal has now been substituted by a Public Libraries Position Statement? Perhaps he could also explain to me, because I do not understand it, the reference to a "post steering group discussion" on 26 January this year.
	I notice that the 2003 DCMS appraisal of annual library plans clearly states that it is unlikely that the targets will be met by the authorities in March 2004 as planned. Thus the performance of public libraries will fall beneath standards set by the Government. This appraisal, published in February 2003 and now updated by the position statement, details a number of strategic failures. For example, the first DCMS objective was to ensure that,
	"library authorities must enable convenient and suitable access for users of libraries".
	This target has not been met. We want the potential in all our public libraries to be utilised, to ensure that everyone has access to resources, knowledge and information—particularly the groups in society that would otherwise be disadvantaged by not being able to do this. Again in February 2003, the report A Framework for the future was published, and it offered,
	"a long-term strategic vision for the public library service".
	In the report, based on the extensive consultation and research with the MLA—previously Resource—the Government states that they are,
	"committed to public libraries and all that they stand for. Our strategy for their future makes promoting reading their key priority. Libraries also have—and will continue to have—a central role in helping people from all walks of life to be part of the communications revolution sweeping the world".
	The Government press release on the day of the report's publication stated:
	"The launch of Framework for the Future is the beginning of the action phase. The Culture Department, together with Resource: The Council for Museums, Archives and Libraries, and a newly-constituted Advisory Council on Libraries, will work with leaders from local government, libraries and education services to make this vision a reality".
	In May 2002, the Audit Commission published a report entitled Building Better Library Services, which concluded that local libraries focused on current users, rather than on attracting new users. We welcome the new initiatives and ways of encouraging new users, such as offering limited free Internet access in libraries. It is self-evident that libraries need to renew and communicate their purposes to the communities they serve.
	Like the noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, we welcome the development of new libraries, such as the new Central Library in Bournemouth, pictured in the report. This new library is in the central part of the town and maintains excellent transport links, with the bus terminal positioned directly outside the building, in addition to a multi-storey car park. The old library in Bournemouth, which was built in 1913, was on the outskirts of the main town centre. The new library, built very recently, has 45,000 more books and over 50 computers available free for an hour's Internet use. It even has toilets and baby-changing facilities, something which your Lordships' House does not have and which the old building in Bournemouth lacked as well. The surroundings are very pleasant and offer open-plan reading tables, an easy reference system and well trained staff in a modern and accessible environment.
	This new library is always busy and has become a focal point for the town, highlighting how such a facility can considerably improve social cohesion while making valuable resources available to all members of the community. The library hosts events to raise public awareness of national initiatives such as the Big Read and the Orange Prize. In addition to the numerous books stocked, the library boasts a collection of spoken word CDs and cassettes, which are available free of charge to those who are visually impaired. Initiatives such as this should be warmly welcomed. However, I am afraid it seems that Bournemouth library, however worthy, is unfortunately not the norm.
	I now return to the debate on 8 May 2003 when Her Majesty's Government were asked:
	"what measures are being taken to remove all barriers to literature for those who have difficulties accessing books in traditional print formats".—[Official Report, 8/5/03; col. 1295.]
	In that debate, I referred to the report Framework for the Future, the subject of this debate. In the report, the Government argue passionately—and rightly—for the importance of reading and access to literature. While detailing a number of ways in which problems of illiteracy and increasing skills can be addressed, there is no mention of any strategy to assist the blind or visually impaired. With today's increased technology, would it not be appropriate for the Government to consider addressing the issues that the visually impaired face by setting targets for public libraries to carry a selection of audio books which meet the demands of the general public?
	It has been established that audio books are by far the most popular method by which visually impaired people can access literature. The drawback, as is so often the case, is the cost. Has there been any progress since the debate on 8 May? In that debate, the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Oldham, said, when referring to VAT on audio books:
	"I hope that I can give a slightly more positive response this year"—
	that was last May—
	"although I cannot promise to solve all the problems of British taxation in regard to the European Community".
	He went on,
	"I am able to say this evening that the Government will engage in the negotiations positively, with a view to getting the rate of VAT down on audio tapes of books"".—[Official Report, 8/5/03; cols. 1309–10.]
	I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us on that.
	This has been a most interesting debate. I think we are all trying our best to improve the services offered by public libraries, as they are an ever more vital part of community cohesion and education. I look forward to hearing the Minister's response. After that, perhaps we could all retire to our splendid Library here and carry on the debate.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, we are all grateful to my noble friend Lord Harrison for introducing this debate. He is right that the subject deserve more attention in your Lordships' House. It is sad, as he said, that so few people have been inspired to take part in the debate. However, we have made up in quality what we lacked in quantity.
	I was particularly pleased to have the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Luke. I looked back at the passage of the Public Libraries Act 1850, the first Act to establish public libraries in this country. It was promoted by a Liberal MP, William Ewart, and attacked by the Conservative Party on the grounds that, as one Conservative MP said,
	"people have too much knowledge already: it was much easier to manage them twenty years ago; the more education people get the more difficult they are to manage".
	I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Luke, does not echo those sentiments.
	It is true, we have to admit, that libraries face a great deal of competition for people's leisure time. It is hardly surprising that if people are watching, on average, four hours of television a day, there is less reading of books. In addition, purchasing books is relatively cheap in relation to disposable income than was the case many years ago. Therefore, a lot more books are actually being bought. It really does not matter, from the point of view of our aesthetic and intellectual objectives, whether the books are bought or borrowed as long as people are reading. I think it is a triumph that people are reading as much as they are. But the effect on public libraries cannot be denied.
	It is true, as my noble friend Lord Harrison said, that visits to public libraries have been going down, as have book loans, although there is some indication that the number of visits to public libraries, perhaps because of the wider range of services now provided, has bottomed out and is increasing slightly. The MLA figures show that there could have been an increase of 2 to 3 per cent of visits to libraries in 2002–03, and I find that encouraging.
	It is also true that declining use of libraries and declining book loans are accompanied by declining funding, because it is thought by local authorities that this is a less important service. But they are profoundly wrong, because of course, despite the decline there has been, as my noble friend Lady Blackstone said, 60 per cent of people in this country are members of a public library. There are more visits to public libraries than there are to professional football matches or to the cinema. As far as the customers are concerned—the users, the readers, although it is more than readers, as I shall show—libraries are one of the most important services that local authorities provide. There are 4,600 public libraries in this country, a lending stock of 84 million books and 32,000 public access computers with access to the Internet. That is quite a service.
	It is right that I should say a word about the contribution that libraries make to the priorities of central and local government. Of course they are justified in their own right; of course they are justified on their basic service. But, in addition, they play a very important role, and I shall be responding to the questions of my noble friend Lady Blackstone in a minute. They raise standards in our schools, they provide books for babies, they encourage family reading, reader development schemes and homework clubs and they provide help for lifelong learning. They improve the quality of life for older people—after all, libraries are a safe, warm, community space in which people can meet. This is particularly valuable for older people. I have heard bingo clubs described in the same terms, but I rather think that libraries provide a little more than they do. Libraries provide help in terms of the economic health of the communities. If they provide, as they do, adult basic skills, business information for small and medium-sized companies, then they are an economic resource for this country. If I am asked to say the right words to Gordon Brown then, yes, those are the words that I would use. I think that there is a very significant economic benefit.
	I was very pleased to hear the welcome for the People's Network, particularly from the noble Lord, Lord Harrison, and the noble Viscount, Lord Falkland. It has been a remarkable achievement, not just to get the lottery funding in the first place but to get it on the ground and to get it working in nearly every one of this country's public libraries. If you extrapolated from a survey of 30 library authorities, you would find that, nationwide, nearly 24,000 people had started a formal education course; over 62,000 people report gaining a new skill; over 105,000 IT training sessions were run in public libraries; and 7,000 people have found new jobs.
	There is an issue about sustainability, because you put in computers and train staff but they become obsolete in a period of years. Part of the bid to receive NOF funds for the People's Network, however, was that local authorities were obliged to submit plans, illustrating how they would continue to fund their People's Network centres once the NOF funding ceased. I have confidence that local authorities are aware of that obligation. I am also conscious that it probably will not work everywhere and that we shall have to find some additional funding from somewhere, in order to make sure that it continues.
	Let me now turn to the A Framework for the future, which is referred to on the Order Paper and, as has been recognised, is the brainchild of my noble friend Lady Blackstone as a most distinguished Minister with responsibility for libraries. The basis of A Framework for the future was that, although there were plenty of examples of good practice in libraries—and some of them have been given by speakers today—and plenty of examples of local authorities providing modern, high-quality libraries and understanding their potential, there were also plenty of examples of local authorities who do not. That was why A Framework for the future was published: to provide a 10-year strategic vision; to encourage greater innovation and greater efficiency in the library service; to promote books, reading and learning; to encourage access to the digital age; and to develop community and civic values.
	It was not just a publication in its own right, however. What happened immediately afterwards was that my noble friend Lady Blackstone commissioned the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council to prepare a three-year plan of activity to turn that vision into reality. That action plan was published in September last year at the Public Libraries Association conference in Torquay, at which I spoke. It is funded with £3 million over a period of three years. There is a long list of targets, and achievements towards those targets, in the action plan and in our reports on that plan. I will return in a moment to the point made about targets by the noble Lord, Lord Luke.
	As has been said, one of the purposes is a sort of glorified self-help. If we have a library service which is widely varied in quality, it is enormously important that we should have the best helping the less good. Therefore, with the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, we are setting up help teams, using the Improvement and Development Agency and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister peer review system. These teams are already in training and starting to be in operation. They will bring together library leaders and staff to work with individual authorities, to help them to improve their libraries. We will be seconding mentors to libraries and encouraging pairing-up with other libraries. We have a leadership programme for about 450 library staff, developed with the Society of Chief Librarians and with the MLA.
	Valid points were made, in particular by my noble friend Lord Harrison, about the marketing of libraries. I heard my learned friend Lady Blackstone praising Tower Hamlets' Idea Stores. She is quite right. I too have been there, and what is being done is terrific. Hampshire is proposing to re-brand its libraries as "Discovery Centres". I rather like the word "libraries". I like Peckham's wonderful new library, which has the word "library", about 100 feet long, on the roof. I would rather stick to that brand, which I think is an enormously important one and describes what it is. I believe that we can build on it, to extend the range of services that a library provides without losing the essential element behind it. It is certainly true, however, that we do need to market our libraries substantially better.
	The noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, referred to the fact that the expenditure on books is only 9.6 per cent of total library budgets. It is also true that, as there is a decline, there is the horrible tendency that more money goes on administration and less on frontline services. That happens everywhere. We have to do something about that. The Advisory Council for Libraries, which my noble friend Lady Blackstone revived and which I have been using intensively, is very concerned on that point. I am not convinced that we are getting the right deals out of publishers and booksellers on books, using our purchasing power. I am certainly not convinced that we are doing the most economical thing. There is one study which shows that it costs as much to purchase and to index a book as it does to buy a book. That cannot be right. We have to find some way round that, and indeed we are actively doing so.
	Even though there has not been too much reference to it this evening, I want to refer to learning initiatives. One of the main things that libraries can do to make a real difference to people's quality of life is the promotion of reading and informal learning, and indeed of formal learning. A Framework for the Future identified five learning offers which libraries will make to the community and which will be marketed as national activities. Those are: early years services, to which reference was made by my noble friend Lord Harrison, namely Bookstart, book bags, and encouraging parents to share books with children from an early age; learning for young people, which involves the Positive Activities for Young People programme for the vulnerable eight to 19-year-olds, and to steer them towards reading. That is the work of the Reading Agency, which is particularly concerned with literacy targets and opening up the world of the creative imagination to people whose homes, I am afraid, are book-free zones.
	My noble friend Lady Blackstone referred to this as out-of-school learning and referred in particular to project work. She asked whether we were having discussions with the Department for Education and Skills about collaboration in this area, and I can assure her that we certainly are. The Secretary of State for the DCMS, Tessa Jowell, is working with the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, Charles Clarke, to encourage visits by schools to museums and libraries. Of course that is part of it, as is also the availability of libraries for out-of-school learning.
	I am a member of the Cabinet Committee on Adult Basic Skills, and the chairman, Charles Clarke, referred to the locations for adult learning. He of course mentioned universities and colleges and also, quite rightly, the National Health Service and prison populations—where there are quite a lot of people who need adult basic skills. I piped up and said, "Libraries as well", and he immediately added it to his list, because clearly these are obvious places for adult learning.
	I discovered to my astonishment that we do not know what libraries can contribute to adult learning. If I was asked, "What facilities are there? How many libraries have room for individual learning workstations as they do for ICT work stations, or room for study circles or seminars and so on?", I find it shaming to say that I do not know the answers to those obvious questions So I am setting in train a survey which will make sure that I do know the answers. When DfES comes to me and says it wants to use the libraries for e-learning, or when Ofcom comes to me and says it wants to use libraries for media literacy, I will be able to give answers on what we can provide.
	That leads me on to the issue of adult learning. I can assure my noble friend Lady Blackstone that the links we have with learndirect are absolutely critical. Ann Limb, its chief executive, is very conscious of the contribution that libraries can and indeed do make. These are not projections for the future.
	Inevitably there has been talk about funding. My noble friend Lord Harrison wants me to appeal to Gordon Brown for more money. The difficulty is that, as everyone knows, libraries are funded as part of local authority block grants. There is no ring fencing for libraries. If local authorities are either poor or mean—in my experience all local authorities are either poor or mean and sometimes both—there is no way that we in DCMS, who have the responsibility for library standards, can ensure that any given amount of funding will be allocated to libraries.
	The noble Viscount, Lord Falkland, wants the certainty of core funding. Of course we want it too, but we do not have it. The way to get an improvement in library standards is not with sticks, because we do not have any sticks, but with carrots.
	The noble Lord, Lord Luke, was exaggerating a little when he accused us of damaging the library service with the overuse of standards. He must know that—

Lord Luke: My Lords, it was in respect of targets.

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, targets and standards are two approaches to the same thing. The noble Lord must know that for 150 years local authorities have had responsibility for setting their own budgets, including libraries. For the first part of those 150 years, under Conservative governments, there were restrictions on the amount of money that could be spent on libraries—a halfpenny rate comes to mind. More progressive governments have moved ahead, but we have not yet said that central government will prescribe how much local authorities will spend on libraries. I do not believe that we should. I recognise the difficulties that it involves.
	We find ourselves in the position of having responsibility in DCMS for standards in libraries but without the means to carry them out. What are we going to do about it? I have hinted at the answer already, in the sense that we have been establishing standards or targets—whichever one wishes to say. We have not achieved 100 per cent compliance with all those standards. We set an ambitious target of the end this month. In almost all these areas we are seeing improvements in the quality of services according to our own standards and targets.
	The Advisory Council on Libraries has been simplifying the targets with position statements. We have simplified them by excluding those that are no longer necessary because they are being 100 per cent achieved. So I think that it will be accepted that we are doing the right thing. My noble friend Lady Blackstone asked me about how the advisory council works. It has set its own agenda in those ways. I have set it additional targets for e-learning and for the sustainability of the People's Network. In general, we have a lot of pressure, a lot of collaboration between library services and a lot of things that we can do from the centre, in terms of help rather than force, to improve the library standards to such a level that we can all be proud of them. As we receive future reports on the progress towards the achievements set out as being possible in A Framework for the future, I hope that that it will be seen that we are making that progress.
	I have not answered the question of the noble Lord, Lord Luke, on disability. I visited the National Library for the Blind. I agree with him entirely about the value of the services that it provides. I wish I had a positive answer on VAT, but, as he knows, negotiations for VAT last autumn did not come to anything. Therefore, the cautious response of my noble friend Lord Davies was rightly cautious.
	I say again that I am grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. I repeat my thanks to my noble friend Lord Harrison for introducing it. I am glad to have had the opportunity to respond.

Lord Harrison: My Lords, I hope and believe that tonight's debate has furthered the cause of better
	understanding of public libraries. I too would like to thank all noble Lords who have contributed. As the Minister said, we may be few in number but I think the quality was extremely high.
	I would like to take up the suggestion made by the noble Lord, Lord Luke, of retiring to our own Library for further discussion, but I fear that we might disturb some of our colleagues who might otherwise like the silence there. The noble Lord prompts me to thank all those who work in our own Library, and especially those at the research desk who have contributed yet again to the background material I have used tonight.
	Finally, as I am in the House of Lords with Dukes and others, perhaps I may be permitted to remind your Lordships of Shakespeare's The Tempest. The dispossessed Prospero was isolated on the magic island when he said that his library to him was "dukedom large enough". With that I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.
	House adjourned at twelve minutes before seven o'clock.